Keeper of Hearts
by Exemia
Summary: After making a wish I end up in the Kingdom Hearts world, gaining my own powers and travelling the worlds with Sora & his friends restoring order to the worlds. Organization XIII's after me, does it have something to do with me being the Keeper of Hearts?
1. Wish

Keeper of Hearts

Plot: During summer vacation I get sucked into the Kingdom Hearts world and end up in Twilight Town during Roxas' time there. I gain special abilities and I have to travel with Sora, Donald and Goofy to help restore order to the worlds. But it's not that simple for me, as I have my own problems to face with my new role as the Keeper of Hearts and now Organization XIII is after me.

Chapter 1: Wish

After my headteacher had finished speaking he dismissed us from the assembly, allowing the entire student body to begin our summer holiday. Everyone rose up from their seats and slowly made their way to the hall doors then to the student services exit door, as soon as first few people walked through the doors it seemed as though all Hell had broke loose. Hundreds of year 7, 8, 9 and 10's rushed to the school gates in sheer joy for their six week long freedom, though I was just happy as everyone else I didn't express it.

As I was walking down to the tram stop I started thinking, _"I want to make this a summer to remember, but nothing exciting happens in this world," _I soon arrived at the stop and looked at the clock, I had two wait two minutes for the Hucknall tram to come, so to pass the time I began cloudgazing. I soon found a few clouds that were very oddly shaped, they were in the shape of the Heartless and Nobody symbols from the Kingdom Hearts games. I heard a bell toll which meant that my tram had arrived, the long metal vehicle slowed down until it came to a complete stop, the doors opened and I walked in while trying to look for an open seat which I did. The tram began moving again down to the David Lane stop, then Highburyvale until finally it halted at my stop, Bulwell.

I proceeded to approach Bulwell Bogs park and walked around it until I jogged over the bridge with my black rucksack bouncing on my back, my walking slowed down a bit as I neared the stoplights with cars rushing past me along the way. The lights turned red and the noise indicated that it was safe for me to cross the road. I walked my usual route home and when I came through the short alleyway, the very first door on my left was my house. I stopped to look at my neighourhood and I saw the many children playing near the old tree, amongst them was my four-year old brother, Kai, playing in the summer sun.

I opened the gate as I heard its hinges creaking when I walked through, the front door was open so I knew that mom was inside. She greeted me as I passed the kitchen,

"Hello, my baby. Did you enjoy your last day of school?" I smiled and replied,

"Yeah, I did. We went to see Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs." I didn't bother taking my shoes off cuz I just wanted to get on my computer as fast as I could, I headed inside my room which had pink wallpaper, a pink high bed, a computer desk, two wardrobes (one is mine and another is my brother's) and shelf that was filled with books, mangas and my PS2 games. I slid open my mirrored wardrobe, dumped my bag inside and slid it closed again.

Gripping the top of the chair I moved it out so I could sit comfortably in it and budged in again, I bent down to the computer tower and pressed the button causing the computer to start. I quickly logged on to my login profile, opened up several internet pages and started listening to some of my favourite music. I was soon called down to fetch my dinner, I had jacket potato with grated cheese and beans, I grabbed my fork and plate and I ran back upstairs to eat my dinner in solitude.

I heard someone walk through the door, I listened to the voices downstairs and figured out that my big sister had come to babysit me and my baby bro when mom was going to work. After mom had departed I spent the next hours on the computer until my mother had returned from her job, which was at around 11:30 pm. I had spent the entire day in my casual attire which consisted of a dark pink top that read 'mademoiselle' in black curly writing, a pair of denam jeans and my white velcro strap shoes. Before I put my pj's on I moved some of the window blinds out of the way so I could see the night sky, I looked up and saw one star that was shining brighter than any other so I thought I could make a wish even though I tried this before and it didn't work.

Then I recited the old wishing star rhyme and made my wish, "Star light, star bright, the first star I see tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might, have this wish I wish tonight... I wish I could go to the Kingdom Hearts world." As I expected it didn't work or so I thought, the moment I turned around a bright light appeared in my room illuminating the entire vicinity, I turned back round and shielded my eyes as best as I could while the light grew bigger until it engulfed me and I started to scream but they became echoes that grew quieter until they stopped.

**So, what did you think of it? Was it good considering this is my first fanfic? Remember, anyone who enjoys this or writes good reviews will get hugs from Aqua.**


	2. Awakening

Chapter 2: Awakening

**Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts or any of its characters, they belong to Square Enix. And I know I forgot to put this in on the first chapter. Sorry :)**

Okay, second chapter is up and running.

_''_ - The anonymous voice.

_" "_ - My thoughts.

When I opened my eyes I found myself surrounded by darkness, I took a step forward and the floor started to glow as white birds form and flew from the ground and eventually disappear. After the birds had disappeared I looked down to see that I was standing on a platform like in Sora and Roxas's awakenings. It was silver in colour and near the edge was a picture of me but I had different clothing, my hair was down and I had a heart in one of my hands.

But when I saw my other hand I was shocked to see that it looked completely different it was like a combination of many things, mainly like mutated body parts from lots of creatures. Beside the picture of me were several heads of certain people; Sora, Donald, Goofy, Kairi, Riku, Roxas and strangely enough a few other Organization members.

_'Keeper of Hearts, do not be afraid...' _I shifted my head to try and find where the voice was coming from but stopped for a second.

_"Keeper of Hearts? What's that supposed to mean?"_

_'You can give hope to those who are hollow, give those who aren't true a second chance.'_

Suddenly three orbs appeared in front of me one on the left being white, one on the right was black and the final one in the middle was a combination of the two, kind of like the yin-yang symbol. I walked towards the black one and touched it knowing the voice was bound to appear again,

_'You want the power of darkness, the need to help those around you at the cost of being destroyed.' _I moved to the light orb and touched it,

_'You want power of light, the power to do ultimate good at the cost of being blinded.' _Finally I touched the third orb, _'You wish for the power of in between, the courage you need to protect those you love and care for and the will to forgive your enemies at the cost of losing yourself.'_

I nodded as an answer and the centre orb entered my chest, right where my heart is.

_'Now what will you give up?' _I locked my eyes on to the two remaining orbs thinking of what to give up, my vision rested on the light and I chose to give it up, it disappeared in a flash of light and the orb of darkness rushed into my body. The platform began to shake and then I saw that it was falling apart, the pieces of broken glass fell beneath my feet as I started falling into the dark abyss until I spotted another platform directly underneath me.

But this platform was different from the previous one, instead it simply had the Heartless and Nobody symbols on its surface, I soon realized that I was no longer falling but floating down until my feet touched the ground. Near the perimeter of this platform I saw a flash of light appeared before me then a pedestal slowly erupted from the glass, a flash of light formed above the pedestal and formed a sword. Out of the corner of each of my eyes I saw two more stone block come out of the floor, the light on the my left formed a staff while the one on my right formed a shield, but then I heard one more rumble coming from behind me but what formed on the last one really caught my eye.

There were symbols of the heads of many shadow-like creatures, I ventured towards this particular one, climbed on to the small stone platform, reached out and touched it, the cryptic voice spoke again.

_'You wish for the power of shape shifting,' _I raised an eyebrow at this and asked the voice,

"What will I gain if I chose this?"

_'You will gain the ability to transform into anything you desire whether it be from memory or thought and you will gain all their powers, but some forms you morph into will come with a price.' _Thinking about it more, I made this a firm decision.

I then turned to the three remaining objects and the voice asked me again of what I should give up, I jumped off and approached the shield deciding to give it up. So what if I lose a little defence. All four pedestals soon disappeared along with the other two items then I heard the mysterious voice again,

_'Now, you shall test your new strength against the enemies you will face.'_ Soon a small group of Heartless appeared, they were only Shadows. I backed up a little bit, fighting is just not in my nature. The small Heartless charged at me, I ran to distance myself from, I suddenly felt stinging pains in one of my legs. I soon found the problem, the Shadows had scratched me and left multiple wounds oozing blood.

When I was a few feet away from them, the image of a wolf appeared in my mind, then a loud noise buzzed in my head causing me to drop on my hands and knees. The sound was like nails on a chalkboard, only ten times worse. Agonising pain seared throughout my entire body, as my bones popped out of place and changed shape.

My fingernails lengthened into sharp claws, teeth turn into fangs, everything that was once in colour is now in black and white, my face extended forward until it was like a muzzle, lupine ears grew on my head, I sprouted a tail and brown fur started growing at an alarming rate all over my body as I let out wolfish snarls and growls. When the transformation was over, I looked down and I had paws instead of hands my clothes were completely gone and I had a furry tail.

Turning my head back, one of the Shadows jumped into the air and was in the middle of bringing its clawed hand down on me when instincts kicked in. I leaped up at it and clamped my jaws around the creature's neck, then I tore out its throat. It gave a gargled screech of pain before it disappeared in a cloud of black smoke.

My eyes shot towards the rest of the Heartless, killing them was the only thing on my mind. Even though I didn't want to kill anything, I had to, just so I could get used to my new power. I sprang at them, jaws open wide and teeth bared, my claws raked their inky black skin and teeth ripped off chunks of flesh, soon enough they all faded back into oblivion in a dark mist.

By the time it was over I was panting from exhaustion, that's when the voice came back again,

_'You have made your decisions now you are ready for your journey. Those who desire feeling must pass your judgement in order to become true.' _With that the voice disappeared as did the environment around me in a flash off blinding, white light.


	3. Welcome to Twilight Town

Chapter 3: Welcome to Twilight Town

**Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts or any of its characters, they belong to Square Enix.**

_" "_ - My thoughts.

As I opened my eyes my vision was blurry but eventually became focused, I sat up on an old couch and looked at my surroundings and saw that the place was littered with all kinds of stuff, there were a few stacked boxes in a corner, a dartboard on the wall as well as a poster that read 'Struggle' and there was the entrance to this place covered by an old dark green cloth.

_"This must be the Usual Spot." _I guessed then a smile crept on to my face as I thought to myself, _"Then that means I must be in Twilight Town, my wish came true after all!"_

I snapped my head to the entrance when I heard footsteps approach, a girl with brown hair in two pigtails and green eyes stood in the doorway and she gazed at me, _"This must be Olette," _then a small smile formed on her face. She turned her back the way she came and called out,

"Guys, she's awake!" Olette entered the usual spot and walked towards me, I glanced to where she had came in and saw three boys rush in as soon as they heard the news, the first one had blond hair and wore mainly army green clothing, the second had dark brown hair like Olette and the last boy had spiky blond hair and sapphire blue eyes, I inwardly smiled at the people I just met.

"Are you alright?" the girl asked I looked at her and gave a sincere smile and assured,

"Yeah, I guess so," I stood up, a little bit dazed, and gazed at the group, then I asked them how I got here, "Hey, any of you know how I got here?" They looked at each other then back to me,

"No, we found you unconscious outside our hangout," the wide boy said. I decided to play dumb seeing as I knew what this place and world is,

"Where am I anyway?"

"You're in Twilight Town," the girl replied "My name's Olette and these are my friends Hayner, Pence and Roxas." As she introduced herself and her friends to me I shook their hands. I then introduced myself,

"My name is Aimee. That's spelled A-I-M-E-E," I told them the spelling because I don't like it when people mistake my name for the traditional spelling.

"Say, Aimee, would you like a tour of Twilight Town?" Roxas asked, naturally I complied. I followed Roxas out of the Usual Spot and he started showing all the places of Twilight Town, he showed all around the market street, the central station, the tower where he and his friends hang out, I was a bit reluctant to go to the top as I'm a little scared of heights but once I got up there I was okay and enjoyed the view, when we got down he showed me the Tram Common, we stopped at one of the shops for some reason but I soon found that it was because he stopped to buy some Sea-salt ice cream. He had two in his hands and he gave one to me, I examined the blue treat then tasted it, I scrunched up my face at the taste and exclaimed,

"Yuck! Salty, and... sweet!" I was amazed that the flavour changed so quickly, Roxas gave a small chuckle and we soon went to the last place of his home world, the sandlot. When we arrived Roxas abruptly stopped and stared angrily at someone, I wondered when I looked to where he was staring I saw that he was looking at a group of four people, of course I knew who they were but still asked him, "Roxas, who are those people?"

"The one in the black cap is Seifer, he's the leader, the girl is Fuu, the big guy is Rai and the little one is Vivi. They're the town's 'disciplinary committee'" Seifer turned around and noticed us staring at them, they walked towards the two of us, I was tempted to run away but stood my ground. They stood a short distance away from us and Seifer broke the silence,

"Hey, chicken wuss. Who's your girlfriend?" at that moment me and Roxas blushed furiously and we both shouted in unison,

"WE ARE NOT BOYFRIEND AND GIRLFRIEND!" Seifer and his gang smirked at our embarrassment and continued taunting us,

"Lovebirds." Fuu plainly said.

"Roxas and his girlfriend sitting in a tree..." Rai teased, the more they continued the more it got me annoyed, indicated by my eye twitching madly and I could see Roxas getting very frustrated. Enough was enough.

"SHUT THE **** UP!" I yelled at the top of my voice, this caused everyone to stare at me as I breathed in and out deeply trying to calm myself down. I looked around to see that Roxas looked at me in shock, Fuu was giving me death glares, Vivi was cowering behind Rai while was looking at me with surprise and Seifer looked as though he was amused. He turned on his heel and started to walk away with his lackeys behind him.

"Come on, let's get out of here," he ordered. I made Roxas take my ice cream and without thinking I called back to him,

"Get back here you coward!" Seifer stopped dead in his tracks and turned back round glaring at me and he questioned,

"What did you say?"

"You heard me. Get back here. You. Coward" I replied through my teeth. He approached me until he was towering over me, we stared each other down seeing who had more nerves.

"You think you can talk to me like that, you little runt?" he sneered

"Damn straight I can, now let me tell you something else," I retorted as I pushed him in the chest making stagger back a few paces I then started walking towards the older teenager, "I don't take too kindly to people who make fun of me or my friends, so if you ever do something like this again. You'll be sorry to have met me,"

I did not even realise what I was saying, what was I thinking in the first place! I would never say something like that to a guy like him! With that being said I started to return to the blonde until I felt something make contact with the back of my head and I soon found myself on the ground with the sound of laughter behind me.

As I slowly got back up I let out an inaudible growl and tears began to well up in my eyes, I spun on my heel and charged at Seifer without him being able to react in time, tackling him to the ground. He managed to throw me off of him in no time and got back on his feet, I regained my footing and was ready to attack him again. I ran at him again, trying to punch him but I missed, I looked up to see his fist connect with my left eye, this caused me to stagger back but endured the pain and ran at him again. This time he tried to hit me again but I dodged and punched him square in the jaw, then I punched him in the face as hard as could. I think I gave him a busted lip, finally before he could defend himself I did a roundhouse kick in his head, which caused him to fall to the ground.

I stood there trying to catch my breath not taking any notice of my injured eye as my tears finally started to drop down the sides of my face.

"By the way, the name's Aimee. Remember it." I said heavily to my fallen opponent, I turned around and saw the faces of those who witnessed the fight, their mouths were wide open and eyes filled with shock and disbelief. With sweat dripping down my face I started limping back to my friend when I neared Rai, Fuu and Vivi they backed away from me, I stopped in front of Roxas, smiled and took back my half melted ice cream.

_"Looks like my dad's boxing and other fighting lessons paid off"_

"Let's go back Roxas," I said and I started walking up the sloped streets back to the Usual Spot, I heard rushing footsteps behind me and knew that Roxas had caught up to me. As we walked back he asked me something I knew he was going to say,

"What happened back there, you totally kicked his butt!"

"I just did what any friend would do," I replied sincerely with a weak smile. _"But that was odd. I would've never taken on a guy like him."_We were soon outside the Usual Spot but the blonde Nobody stopped me for a minute to have a look at my stinging eye, he told me to put my frozen treat on it so it wouldn't swell, so I did what I was told.

When we stepped inside we found the others waiting for us they looked confused and asked why I had an ice cream on my eye, me and Roxas told them the whole story. Hayner, Pence and Olette were amazed that I stood up to Seifer but were even more surprised when they found out I had beaten him in a fight, me, a girl. Hayner was laughing so hard and said that he wished he was there to see it.

"Not bad, huh?" I inquired.

"You know what, you're alright Aimee. As of today you are a new member of our gang." I was thrilled to bits but then realized that this is just the virtual version of the real Twilight Town, so no one would remember me or Roxas when his time in this world is up.

"It's getting late I think we should be heading home. I guess we'll see you at the tournament tomorrow," Pence said. I gave him a confused and asked,

"What tournament?"

"The Struggle tournament, it's tomorrow in the Sandlot,"

"Alright, I'll see you guys there," everyone was about go to their homes when Hayner stopped for a moment and turned to me.

"Aimee, do have a place to sleep tonight?" Hayner asked, I just realized that I don't have anywhere to stay, I shook my head as an answer. "In that case you can stay here, just don't touch anything." I put my hand to my heart and said

"I promise I won't touch a thing" with that they left me by myself except for Roxas who looked at me worriedly. "Don't worry Roxas, I'll be fine." I assured him, he gave me one last glance and then left me all alone.

I lay down on the sofa, trying to ignore the stinging pain in my black eye and started thinking about what that mysterious voice said,

_"You will be gain the ability to transform into anything you desire whether it be from memory or thought and you will gain all their powers."_ I then said to myself,

"Anything I desire, huh?" I got up and walked towards the entrance and said aloud, "Never know until I try."


	4. Transformations

Chapter 4: Transformations

**Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts or any of its characters, they belong to Square Enix.**

**Just so you know, this is a short chapter so it's going to be quick to read.**

So many things I could change into but which one did I want to start with. I gave it some thought and decided to transform into a weak Heartless, a Shadow. I tried to picture the image of a Shadow inside my head which after a while was successful, I then felt a tingling sensation in my hands and I lifted them up so they were a short distance away from my face and my eyes widened as I saw that the first two fingers on both of my hands merged into one clawed finger, the last two appendages also formed into one finger as well until my hands consisted of two fingers and a thumb on each.

I felt something protrude from my forehead, from my memory of a Shadow I guessed that these were the antennas, I looked down and noticed that my feet began to form into points, I looked back at my skin and saw that my skin began to darken until it was inky black.

My body started to ache as I felt my limbs, bones and muscles shifting in size to become more shorter and smaller, my mouth spread across my face until it was jagged and reached my ears, then my ears sank into my head, eyes became slightly bigger, rounder and glowed yellow and my clothes disappeared, completing my metamorphosis.

I jumped with joy, I made my first transformation! Now take it out for a spin, first I tried to see if I could sink into the ground. My body lowered into the ground until a looked like a 2D version Shadow, now that I learned this little trick I rose out of the ground and tried to remember what else this type of Heartless could do. Next I tried climbing up the sides of buildings which was surprisingly simple, _Okay, time to change back_. I started chanting the words change back inside my head and just as quickly as I transformed I reverted back to my normal form.

For my second change in appearance I decided to become a Dusk, like before my body altered shape only this time thick white wisps of smoke enveloped my entire body and in a few seconds the metamorphose was complete, I examined my new form with joy as I completed my second transformation with no side effects, I tried walking but I felt a little weird as the walk of a Dusk involved stretching my legs to take long strides but I got used to it, eventually, I tested how high I could jump which was quite high by my standards.

As I descended back to the ground I braced for impact but it never came instead I found myself standing in midair, I leaped to a certain distance away while still a few feet above the ground and began slithering away to the sandlot through the air.

When I arrived at the sandlot it was completely deserted, not even Seifer and his gang were around perfect place to practice my fighting in my other forms but first I needed a rest so sat on one of the nearby benches.

"Never realised that shape shifting could take a lot out of you," I said to myself, I looked at my dagger-like hands as I thought to myself,

_"Can't believe this is actually happening. Could things get any more complicated?"_ As if I had been answered I heard something, looking up I spotted a dark portal open in front of my none visible eyes a short distance away, I quickly stood and tensed up as someone in an Organization cloak stepped out of it.

_"Apparently it can."_ I plainly thought. As the portal disappeared he started surveying the area, I wanted to know who it was but I didn't want to stick around to find out.

Before I could leave the figure spotted me, I froze for a moment and held the person's gaze. I slowly backed away, never letting the figure out of my sight, but since I wasn't looking where I was going, I ended up falling on my butt when I tripped over one of the benches. The figure gave a small laugh at my clumsiness, when my back was facing the alleyway I just came from, I turned and slithered my way back to the Usual Spot.

_"I guess I'll have to practise another time."_ Once I made it to the hideout white smoke began to rise off of my body, soon it all evaporated into the air and I was back to my original self. Too exhausted to think about anything else I lazily dragged myself inside, collapsed on the tattered furniture and let sleep take me over as my world grew dark and I slipped into slumber.

**Thank you to those who have reviewed my fanfic, Aqua sends big sea monster hugs to you!**


	5. Enter the Flurry of Dancing Flames

Chapter 5: Enter the Flurry of Dancing Flames

**Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts or any of its characters, they belong to Square Enix.**

_" "_ - My thoughts.

By the time I woke up the ever still sun was shining its rays of light on to the buildings of Twilight Town. I groggily got up and walked out the Usual Spot to see the citizens gather for the Struggle tournament, while I walked down to the Sandlot I undid the braid my brown hair was in seeing as though I couldn't be bothered to re-do my hair, so I just let it flow down my back, as I ran a hand through my locks to get rid of any knots and I kept the two bobbles around my wrist.

A huge crowd had surrounded the platform awaiting for the battles to begin, amongst the many people I spotted Roxas near the front but something didn't seem right. Moving people out of the way I tapped the blond on the shoulder to get his attention, Roxas turned his head towards me with a bit of shock in his blue eyes.

"You alright, Roxas?" I asked with concern in my own blue eyes.

"Yeah, I'm fine..," I knew he was lying, but gave him a small smile,

"If you're sure. Well, good luck with this." He walked over to the judge where Hayner, Seifer and Vivi were standing, barely listening to the announcer who was going over the rules I looked up to one the buildings and spied a black figure standing on the roof observing the oncoming matches. I returned my view to the platform where the fights were starting and smirked,

_"So that's where you're hiding."_I watched with slight boredom waiting for the Nobodies to show up, then suddenly the crowd stopped cheering I glanced around and faced Roxas and Vivi. The little boy turned into a Dusk as Roxas looked at it frustrated,

"Again" I climbed on to the platform that was the arena and stood a short distance away from my friend, just his struggle bat turned into a Keyblade.

"Again..." he said more quietly as more Dusks appeared.

"Of course it's happening again, these guys are too damn persistent." He looked back at me and I gave a slight smirk but returned my attention to the now attacking Dusks, it wasn't long before Roxas slain all of them and clapping was heard. A slender man in a black hooded trench coat stood there clapping.

"Roxas. Alright. Fight, fight, fight." The hooded man walked closer towards us. "You really don't remember? It's me. You know, Axel." He told us as he removed his hood to reveal bright red, spiky hair, vibrant green eyes with tattoos under them. I cocked my head to the side and he looked at me, I just smiled and waved at him. Roxas was still staring at him confused,

"Axel?" The tall man turned back to the teenage blond,

"Talk about blank with a capital B. Man, oh man, even the Dusks aren't gonna crack this one." Axel summoned his chakrams and caught them. My eyes narrowed as Roxas demanded,

"Wait a sec, tell me what's going on!" The red head straightened a little and looked around.

"This town is his creation, right? Which means we don't have time for Q&A. Your coming with me, conscious or not. Then you'll hear the story."

Knowing that they were about to fight I was going to back him up so I turned into my new Dusk form, Axel stared at me in surprise but I just as I got ready to spring into action I was sure Roxas was looking at me the same way but ignored him. Then something seemed like it flew around the arena, causing me to look around in surprise, Axel straightened up again. "Uh-oh."

"Took the words right out of my mouth." He snapped over to me in confusion but I averted my gaze to Roxas who I could tell was getting continually more frustrated.

"What's going ON !" He yelled spinning the Kingdom Key a few feet away from him. My eyes widened when they Keyblade disappeared and reappeared in a flash of light into Roxas' hand.

"Number 13. Roxas. The Keyblade's chosen one." Axel slightly crouched getting ready to fight.

_"About time they were going to throw down. But one must wonder how many more interruptions are going to occur."_

"Okay, fine! You asked for it!" the older Nobody smirked.

"That's more like it!" They began the brawl, about half way through their fight I helped Roxas out by distracting Axel, soon Roxas won but Axel went easy on him, Axel jumped back with a smile. A swirl of data appeared out of nowhere to reveal DiZ, we all looked at him, my eyes widened and I took a step back.

_"Holy crap, it's DiZ!"_

"So it was you." Axel jumped back and threw his flaming chakrams at the mysterious man but DiZ reflected them causing them to bounce back to their owner, which he caught easily.

DiZ turned to Roxas and said to him,

"Roxas, this man speaks nonsense!" the blond turned to the red haired Nobody,

"Roxas, don't let him deceive you!" I turned back into a human and jumped off the platform as the two men continued calling his name, I saw Roxas cover his ears and say,

"Hayner... Pence... Olette... Aimee." that was when I froze,

_"Did he just say my name with the others?" _he said the names a second time, there was a brief flash of light and the crowd started cheering again, Vivi was back and he collapsed, the announcer was confused but deemed Roxas as the winner.

I was about to leave but before I did I gave a thumbs up to the boy even though he didn't look. I slipped through the many people and walked away from the Sandlot knowing that he would win against Setzer, hopefully.

I walked up the sloped streets up to the Central Station with my hands in my pockets. I stopped in the centre and stared at the top of the Clock Tower.

"You know, for an oddball in this world I thought you'd try to stay with the crowd," I turned around to see the pyro standing behind me with his arms folded. I turned to face him and took my hands out of my jean pockets.

"So I'm an oddball am I? Just what do you mean by that?" Axel smirked,

"I mean that you're the only other person who was able to resist DiZ's time freezing," I let out an annoyed sigh,

"What do you want anyway Axel?"

"No need to get snippy with me kid.." before he could continue I cut him off,

"Look don't call me 'kid'. I have a name you know." he raised an eyebrow and smiled,

"Well what is it then?"

"It's Aimee. A-I-M-E-E, got it memorized?" I chuckled at the last part as I tapped the side of my head with my index finger, Axel stood there in slight shock. I brushed past him as I was heading back to the Struggle Tournament but he called out to me,

"Wait a minute. I've got some questions I need to ask you." I halted and stood silent for a moment, then an idea popped into my head and I said to Axel,

"Meet me at the top of the Clock Tower tomorrow I'll try to explain everything I know. See you around!" With that I ran down the streets of Twilight Town and away from Axel. Axel stood there looking at the girl running away, he felt like there was something about her he could trust. One thing he did know though, she was a curiosity.

I returned back to the sandlot just in time to see Roxas's struggle with Setzer begin. It was a tough match but sure enough, Roxas won the tournament and became this year's Struggle Champion. After everything had calmed down, we all went to the Clock Tower to have a bit of relaxation and Roxas had the trophy in his hand.

It had the four round crystals on it, the blonde pulled off the yellow one and threw it over to Olette, he did the same with the other three, tossing the red one to Hayner, the green one to Pence, he pulled off the blue one and was offering it to me but I told him that he should keep it, he was the winner after all.

"As promised." Roxas said.

"Thanks a ton, Roxas! One more treasure for us to share." Hayner thanked.

They all held up the orb in front of the sunset to make it sparkle, they stayed like that for a while as I just stared at the town below.

"I've got a present, too... for all of us." Olette cheerfully told us. She brought up her hands, holding five sea-salt ice cream bars, Roxas stood up in surprise. Suddenly, he lost his footing and fell off the tower, my eyes narrowed, heart beating relentlessly against my chest and a grim look appeared on my face when I saw my friend fall.

I slid myself off the ledge and fell after him, I reached out with my hand to try and grab a hold of him as we plummetted towards the ground below. I would've turned into something that could fly but I didn't want to reveal my power. Roxas tried to reach my hand as he looked at me with fear in his blue eyes, our fingertips just inches away from each others. Soon enough I managed to grab his hand and hold it tightly, then something happened.

At that point, time slowed down for us. Then I could hear Roxas ask,

"Namine...? What's happening to me?" another voice joined but it was a girl's.

"Who are you? And that's not my name. I'm Kairi," My eyes went wide as I thought to myself,

_"Whoa.. now I'm hearing their mental conversation, what a day this has been!"_

"Kairi.. I know you. You're that girl he likes," Heh heh.. always knew Sora had feelings for Kairi.

"Who? Please a name,"

"I'm Roxas."

"Okay, Roxas. But can you tell me HIS name?" Another voice joined in soon enough,

"You don't remember my name? Thanks a lot, Kairi!" he said. Kairi let out a surprised gasp, then the voice said,

"Okay, I guess I could give you a hint. Starts with an 'S'." that was when it ended, and when I realized we were only seconds away from impact with the stone ground. I just pulled Roxas close to me as we embraced for impact but that was when everything went black and a computerised voice said,

"Restoration at 79%"

**So did you all like the chapter. I'm glad that this one was longer than the other ones. Keep on reading! Aqua sends hugs! ;)**


	6. Working for a Gift

Chapter 6: Working for a Gift

**Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts or any of its characters, they belong to Square Enix.**

I woke up with sweat drenching my face and I sat up while taking in fast paced breaths. Looking around, I found that I have somehow reappeared in the Usual Spot. I remembered that I have to go out today, after the events that partook yesterday and the little thought I came up with during my conversation with Axel. I jumped off the couch and rushed out of my temporary home and sped down to the Tram Common. I jogged over to a notice board to see what jobs were available, surprisingly there were many of them.

For the entire morning I spent most of my time running errands and helping others with their jobs; delivering mail, moving heavy objects etc I got paid quite a lot from certain jobs. While I was resting I counted the munny I earned, altogether I had 4000 munny, I was really pleased with myself.

I made my way to the accessory store and looked at the items in the window until my gaze rested on two particular objects, as quickly as I found them I rushed inside the store to purchase them.

"These two will be perfect," I said to myself as I came out the store staring at my newly purchased items. Then a thought came into my head,

_"Oh no, Roxas and the others must be wondering where I am."_ Without a moment's hesitation I sprinted to the hangout. Once I got there I slowly moved the cloth out of the way and inside I found everyone sitting in various places staring at me.

"Where were you? We looked everywhere for you," Hayner asked seriously, sweat ran down my head and I explained myself.

"Well I was out running errands and jobs for people all morning," everyone let out relieved sighs. I walked further inside and turned to Pence and asked him,

"Pence, can I use your camera for a while?" To say the least he was a little surprised but lent me his camera, I told everyone to get together so I could take some photos. The first one I took was of Roxas, Hayner, Pence and Olette, the second had me in this one and finally the third photo just had Roxas in this, once the photos came out and developed in turned to take my leave.

"I've got to go somewhere and don't worry I'll bring the camera back," I guaranteed him before I rushed out leaving them a little confused.

Before I went to my destination I stopped at a shop, used whatever munny I had left and bought two Sea-salt ice creams, I then ran as fast as I could to the Central Station. Looking up at the Clock Tower I thought "I can't walk all the way up there again" so I decided to transform into a flying creature, I decided to change into... Camazotz (from Digital Devil Saga).

I remembered what he had looked like and began to transform, my body including clothes became pitch black and light purple circuit lines glowed on top, then a cylinder of data surrounded me and in a flash I turned into the bat from Hell.

My vision had changed as I saw everything in red and I was lower to the ground, that's when I remembered that Camazotz's head was attached to its groin, my arms became huge wings, I had dark brown fur with blue stripes, a ring of white fur and my short neck and my mouth was full of huge sharp fangs.

Using my wings I started to lift myself off the ground, flapped higher into the air and flew to the top of the tower with one of the ice creams lodged in my fangs, the other ice cream was gripped in one of my feet while the other one held the camera and photos.

When I reached and landed on the ledge, I gently put the camera and photographs down, used both of my wings to grip the second ice pop and then turned back into my human self.

I took the sea-salt ice cream that was still in my mouth out, moved the other items I brought with me to my right and patiently waited for Axel to arrive. I quickly devoured my treat, I continued to wait until minutes later I heard footsteps approaching from my left.

I looked up to see the fire using Nobody looking down at me.

"About time you showed up!" I exclaimed with fake irritation in my voice. He just sat down beside me and sarcastically apologized,

"Sorry," I held the blue ice cream in front of his face, he looked at me with a raised eyebrow but I continued to offer it to him, reluctantly he took it out of my hand.

"How did you do that?" he asked, I turned to him with slight confusion.

"Do what?"

"Become a Dusk without losing your heart," I looked at the sun and the buildings of this world, then I gave a weak smile and answered,

"Lets just say I was offered this ability by a mysterious voice before I ended up here," Axel stared at me with fascination and he looked as though he wanted to know more, he then asked more questions,

"So you have the ability to freely turn into a Nobody?,"

"Not just that. I can change into any creature I have seen or created from my imagination and I gain all their powers as well," I explained more as I looked at him. He seemed to have focused his sights on one of my eyes for some reason.

"How did you get that shiner?" I realized that he was talking about my black eye, so I gladly told him that I got into a fight and won.

"Why weren't you affected by DiZ's time control?"

"I dunno. Maybe it's because I'm not from this world," I said. Before he could ask me another question I asked him with one of my own even though I already knew the answer,

"What's the deal between you and Roxas?" the red head looked away from me and looked a little sad as he replied,

"He's... an old friend,"

"Best friend?" I inquired, he nodded. I reached into my pocket and took out one the objects I bought earlier, it was a heart-shaped locket with the initials 'BFF' inscribed on the front, then I turned my back to him and started to alter the picture of Roxas.

I ripped off most of the picture until only the blonde's head remained, I opened the item and placed the picture inside, it fit perfectly. When I was done I turned back around slightly and got Axel's attention.

"Axel, I've got a gift for you," the male immediately snapped his head at me with his jaw slightly open. "Hold out your hand," he complied and extended his gloved hand, I placed the silver trinket in his hand and let him gaze at it.

He opened it and looked at the picture inside, for a moment I thought I saw a bit of sadness in his bright green eyes, he looked back up at me with a questioning look.

"Why give something like this to someone like me?" I grabbed one of the group and stared at it,

"Any friend of Roxas is a friend of mine... Besides you can now keep him close to your heart wherever you go," I obviously knew that he didn't have a heart but I just thought it was nice to keep something that reminds you of a friend close to you, I dove into my pockets, took out the other locket and placed it beside me. I asked Axel to look at the camera and smile because I had to take a picture of him to put in the second silver neck wear.

When the flash went off, Axel quickly rubbed his eyes as the picture came out, I soon cut out the head of the picture and placed it in the locket,

"This one is for Roxas but I'll give it to him when the time is right," I stated as I tucked back it into my jeans as well as the photos, lifting my arms into the air I stretched them as much as I could.

_"Well I better get going"_I turned into Camazotz once again, grabbed the camera in my sharp claws and was about to fly off the building when I turned my head to Axel. Shock was plastered on his face as he stared at my new form I giggled but when I did my voice sounded different, like Bat's when he turned into his demon form,

"I'll see you later. Bye-bye." While I had my wings by my sides, I jumped off the ledge and started plummeting to the ground. Before I came into contact with the stone floor I spread my wings and started to glide in the air back to the Usual Spot, during my fall I could have sworn I heard Axel say "Thank you" with the help of my large bat ears.

Rumbling filled my ears as I realized it was coming from my stomach, I was hungry, as I was looking down at the many rooftops I spotted an animal wandering down the streets, and that's when it happened.

Something in my head told me to attack the creature below, the urge kept getting harder to resist until I couldn't take it anymore, I dived down towards the unsuspecting animal with my talons bared. My claws gripped and dug into its flesh as I flapped my wings to be airborne again with a squirming, yelping dog in my grasp, I landed on a building rooftop and kept my prey pinned under my feet.

My mouth produced more saliva than usual and it dripped down onto the canine's fur as it tried to wiggle its way out of my claws while making loud whines that were starting to deafen my sensitive hearing, I let out a low growl then I lunged and sank my fangs into its throat. It made a pained howl but it immediately stopped once I jerked my head up, tearing its windpipe out.

I swallowed the torn piece of meat and savoured the taste of the coppery blood, that was the last thing I remembered before I lost my senses and blacked out.


	7. Goodbye Roxas, Hello Sora

Chapter 7: Goodbye Roxas, Hello Sora

The rays of the frozen sunset shone through the entrance of the Usual Spot and on to my body, but something didn't seem right so I looked around and to my surprise, found everything to be literally turned upside down also there was the taste of blood in my mouth, from what I just remembered, was from that innocent dog I killed.

_"I guess that's what the voice meant by some of my forms will come with a price."_I looked up at the ceiling and saw that I was hanging upside down by my feet, then I realised that I was still in my Camazotz form, I released my grip and dropped to the ground, thankfully I was quick enough to land on my feet instead of my headless torso.

I turned away from the entry of this place and stretched my wings to release my tensed muscles. Then I realised something was wrong, I turned to the side and saw Hayner, Pence and Olette in the room talking to each other, but they didn't even notice me.

"Umm... Hello?" I cautiously greeted , they didn't respond and just ignored me. I reached out to them with my clawed wing but just as I touched them my appendage went right through them and they faded like a ghost but soon became solid again.

_"I went through them... Then that means this is Roxas's last day here." _I thought sadly.

"Man, I could not sleep last night," I heard a voice say, it was Roxas, I stood completely still as my heart pounded against my ribcage rapidly. Moving my head slightly to the side, I saw out of the corner of my reddened vision Roxas standing there staring directly at me. Neither of us dared to move until Roxas saw me standing next to his friends and yelled,

"Guys, run!" They ignored him, then they ran towards the entrance, they passed through the blond and out of the hangout. Roxas walked towards the back of the Usual Spot as I gave him some distance and he picked up a photograph of his friends and found that he was no longer in it with them.

He ran out and stopped in the middle of the area surrounded with pathways leading to other parts of Twilight Town, a bunch of Dusks appeared and surrounded him. A warping sound could be heard as a dark portal opened and Axel revealed himself, I hid behind a wall inside the Usual Spot but just enough so I could see what was happening.

"Look at what it's come too. I've been given these icky orders to destroy you… if you refuse to come back with me." Roxas straightened up and hesitantly said,

"We're... best friends, right?" Axel scratched the back of his head and replied,

"Sure... but I'm not getting turned into a Dusk for..." the redhead's eyes suddenly widened with joy, "Wait a sec! You remember now!"

"Y... eah." Roxas answered, still hesitant.

"Great! But, you know, gotta make sure and all. So, umm..." Axel tried to think of a question to ask and soon thought of one, "What's our boss's name?" Roxas stayed silent because he couldn't answer, I wanted to give the answer but I resisted as it would arouse suspicion. I could see Axel's excitement dull and his green eyes filled with depression.

"Can't believe this..." Axel muttered. Roxas picked up a stick and it turned into the Keyblade, he quickly disposed of the Dusks and few Assassins and was about to fight against Axel when time stopped again. I came out from the Usual Spot and neared Roxas when DiZ's voice appeared again.

"Roxas, to the mansion! The time has come. Girl, follow him!" DiZ ordered, the girl part caught Roxas's attention as he jerked his head towards me and started slowly backing off.

_"Thanks a lot DiZ!"_

"Roxas, wait!" I called out, making him stop dead in his tracks. He eyed me suspiciously and asked,

"How do you know my name?" I let out a small sigh and dipped my head, my demon bat body glowed white and I was in my true form again and the blond stared at me with wide blue eyes.

"Aimee? You were that monster?" He lifted my head a little so I would make eye contact with him and nodded as a response. "What about that Dusk?"

"That was me too. It's because of this ability I have," I answered softly while I made eyes stare at the ground

"Why didn't you tell me before?"

"Because I thought you wouldn't be my friend anymore," As I stared down at the ground beneath me, I realised that I still have the other locket in my pocket. A smile spread across my face as I looked back up, "By the way Roxas, I've got a present for ya," Just as Axel did when I told him my friend immediately looked at me with his mouth slightly agape. I dove my hand into my pocket and pulled out the other matching necklace and handed it to him. He looked at it, then he opened the silver pendant and found the picture of Axel I had put in there. He looked back at me and gave a slight smile.

"Thank you," he said. He placed it around his neck and started running towards the forest, he stopped and turned to face me, "Aren't you coming?" I shook my head,

"No. I'm gonna stay and slow down Axel, that should give you enough time to find out more about yourself," I explained. "And Roxas, thank you for being my friend. Goodbye..." He nodded and hesitantly started heading towards the mansion. "For now..." Just as I turned to face Axel he was able to move again, he looked around but could only see me as the only other person with him and then he dismissed his chakrams.

"The Roxas I know is long gone. Fine, I see how it is..." Axel said miserably I felt sorry for him since his only best friend didn't really remember him. So I tried to cheer him up,

"Axel, some memories are harder to remember. Give him a chance,"

"There's nothing I can do now. Except follow my orders,"

_"Oh well, I tried." _I started walking in the direction Roxas went, when the pyromaniac halted me. "Where are you going?" I faced him and told him my destination

"I'm getting out of this place and the only way I know how is in that mansion," I turned and was about to start walking towards the entrance to the forest when a hand grabbed my arm and yanked me back and before I could say anything he pulled me through a corridor of darkness.

The darkness immediately sent chills down my spine and made the hairs at the back of my neck stand. I felt like could get lost in here if I didn't have Axel dragging me along. We soon exited the portal and wound up in a dark room that had luminescent green lights on the floor. The Basement Hall.

I looked around and soon found a corridor that had human sized pods attached to the wall. We were near the Pod Room, where Sora was sleeping. I turned around to see that Axel had created another portal, before he could step into it I inquired,

"Going to fight Roxas?" He glanced over his shoulder and answered sadly,

"Yeah... I have to,"

"Well... just promise me you won't get into too much trouble." I requested, he blinked and said,

"Sure." with that he disappeared into the vortex, back to the virtual Twilight Town. I thought to myself.

_"The Flurry of Dancing Flames. Who would've thought we could get along?"_ I then proceeded in walking down the hallway towards the Pod Room. On the way there, I spotted two human sized pods already open, they looked similar to flowers that have bloomed. Donald and Goofy are already awake then.

At the end of the passage, I was at the entrance to the gigantic white room. A few feet away from me were Goofy and Donald, who were standing in front of one giant pod. Beams of light suddenly shot out of it and as it slowly opened, a thin mist seeped out of it.

When the smoke cleared, a boy about my age with spiky brown hair stretched his arms and yawned as he woke up. I was actually witnessing the awakening of Sora, the Keyblade Master himself.


	8. Acquaintance with the Keywielder

Chapter 8: Acquaintance with the Keywielder

**Ladies and gentlemen, dudes and dudettes... Exemia has returned! At last, FREEDOOOOM! A whole six weeks of relaxation. Sorry with the long hold up but I had massive writer's block.**

**But moving on! I would like to thank everyone for reviewing all my stories and for some of you adding me as one of your favourite authors. Now here's chapter 8, let's have a big round of applause for chapter 8! (Insert clapping audience)**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts.**

* * *

When Sora caught sight of his friends he leaped out of the pod and hugged them, they held each other's hands and started jumping in a circle while laughing with joy.

I smiled at them and happily said aloud,

"Isn't this a happy reunion?" they looked in my direction and their eyes widened in surprise.

"Who are you?" Donald quacked. I put my hands up in a friendly gesture to show I meant no harm, I walked towards them and said to the duck,

"Calm down Ducky, don't get your feathers in a bunch. I don't intend to hurt you guys," I calmly assured as I stopped in front of them. They gave me strange looks, trying to figure who I am. "Anyway, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Aimée,"

I said to break the silence.

Donald started the greetings and put his hand,

"Donald Duck," I gripped his hand and shook it in a friendly handshake as I smiled.

"Name's Goofy," the dog chuckled.

"I'm Sora," the teenager greeted, when I shook his hand I couldn't resist giggling. This made the boy confused so explained to him as a slight blush broke out on my face,

"Sorry about that, it's just that it's an honour to meet the Keyblade Master in person,"

"How do you know Sora's the Keyblade Master?" Goofy asked. I did not answer.

_"Oookay what are my options here? If I tell them how I actually know Sora is the KM they'll most likely think I'm mental but the alternative is to mix a lie with the truth... Yeah, let's go with that one."_

A hand was waving infront of my face trying to snap me out of my thought-induced trance, it worked when I heard the three of them call my name at the same time. I was jolted back to reality,

"Are you okay? You zoned for a minute there,"

"Yeah, I sometimes stare off into space. Anyway, I know that you're the Keyblader because your reputation proceeds you," I told him.

"Really?"

"Yeah! You know, in my world you're very popular especially amongst kids our age," Sora stood in shock but then smiled at his newly discovered popularity.

"What about us?" Donald asked, I presumed he wanted to know if he was famous, I'm guessing Goofy wants to know as well as they stared at me expectantly,

"Well.. you are popular but more with toddlers and small children," Donald looked a little peeved but Goofy didn't seem to mind. We heard a small yawn then a new voice said,

"That was some nap!" a green bug wearing a top hat, posh clothes and carrying a tiny umbrella jumped out of Sora's hood and on to his shoulder. Sora then inquired,

"You mean, we were asleep?"

"I guess we musta been, or I don't think we'd be so drowsy..." he looked around and jumped back a little when he spotted me,

"Who are you?" he asked politely. I took a few steps forward and knelt on one knee so I could speak to him more on his level.

"My name's Aimée, Aimée Renault."

"Cricket's the name, Jiminy Cricket," he took off his hat and gave a small bow. As I rose up, Goofy started talking to the others,

"When do ya think we went to sleep?"

_"Resist temptation to answer! Resist temptation to answer!"_ that was all my brain was yelling to me. Donald and Sora crossed their arms and uttered,

"Uhh..." while they tried to remember the events of what happened in the previous year. "Let's see...we defeated Ansem..."

"Yep," Goofy confirmed.

"Restored peace to the world...found Kairi... Oh yeah, and then we went to look for Riku. I think that's right so far,"

"Then what?" Donald quacked in frustration. Sora didn't answer as he was trying to think, Goofy then asked Jiminy,

"What does your journal say, Jiminy?" the cricket took out a very small journal that would be normal size for him and flicked through the pages in search of any messages or notes.

"Gee, there's only one sentence..." he answered. " "Thank Naminé". Hmm... I wonder who that is?" Everyone looked at each other to see if they knew anyone by that name, they all shook their heads as a 'no'.

"Some journal that is," Donald huffed as he frowned. Jiminy staggered back and stuttered for a second before suggesting,

"Well, what do ya say we find out where we are!"

"I can tell you where you guys are," I added, the looked at me with pleasant looks on their faces, "But what do ya say we get outta here first?" they nodded and we started walking towards the doorway to get out of the mansion. When we were out of the old building Sora asked,

"So where are we anyway?"

"We're in a world called Twilight Town," I gestured to the sky and they followed with their eyes, "And the reason why this place is called that is because whether or not it's the middle of the day or if it's midnight. This place is forever in twilight. This building right here is a 'haunted' mansion on the edge of town." after my little giving of extra info on this place, the trio started exploring the garden, Sora unlocked a few treasure chests and got a couple of potions and ethers out of them. I told them that I would lead them to the main city when they were done.

When they were finished, Sora walked up to me with Donald and Goofy close by. I asked them,

"Are we ready to go then?" they nodded, Sora having a wide grin on his face, I smirked back at him and we began our way through the forest. As we walked, we were attacked by a group of Dusks, there were only about four of them so it wasn't anything too serious. Sora, Donald and Goofy drew their weapons and charged in for the attack. I just turned my nails into very sharp claws and started slashing at one of the Dusks.

The Dusk slithered away from me every time I tried to attack it but I only managed to give it a few scrapes, it then retaliated and it used its sharp dagger-like hands to wound me but ended up snagging a bit of my shirt and making a large rip in the centre exposing my abdomen.

I stood there for a moment as my eye twitched in anger,

"Oh hell no, you did not just rip my favourite top!" I said to it, the lesser Nobody cringed as it seemed to sense an angry aura around me. Too frightened to move, I took the opportunity, grabbed it around the neck and started beating it like there was no tomorrow as I said between hits,

"That. Was. My. Favourite. Shirt!" to finish the creature off I grabbed it by the legs, dragged it to a nearby tree and slammed its spine so hard into the plant that it was killed on impact. I was taking in deep breaths to calm myself before I turned to the others, they were staring at my in shock and maybe a little fear, even the Dusks they were fighting stopped dead in their tracks. I then threatend the remaining Dusks,

"If you don't want to share the same fate as your friend, you'll get out of here. NOW!" the Dusks straightened then disappeared in an instant. As soon as I settled down and everyone got over their shock we finally made into the city.

Eventually, we arrived at the Usual Spot, before going in Sora looked around a little and said,

"You know, I think I've been to this town," Donald turned to the brunette and replied,

"Really?"

"Hmm... Guess I must've imagined it," as he went in, I stopped when Roxas replaced Sora's image, my eyes grew sad and I gave a heavy sigh.

"Aimée, you coming?" Sora called out, that made me jump and said,

"Yeah, I'm coming." I followed him into the hangout and forced my face into a neutral expression, sitting in different areas were Hayner, Pence and Olette laying around boredly.

Hayner was first to speak up but in a way as if he was looking for a fight,

"What do you want!" Sora put his hands as if to say 'we come in peace', backed up a little bit and placed a hand behind his head,

"Uh, nothing. Just wondering what was back here." Hayner leaned forward, keeping up the tough guy act and sighed,

"Now you know. This is our spot." Pence got up from his spot and walked towards Sora, tilting his head to one side while going,

"Umm.." Sora turned to the boy and curiously asked,

"What?"

"You're... new around here right? I'm Pence." he pointed a thumb to his chest in the self-intro.

"Hayner. Nice to meet you, but we've got stuff to do, so catch ya later." the blonde gave a dismissive wave a walked out the door, before he did though he gave me a slight glare but I just gave a slight smile in return, then he was gone.

_"Sheesh, what's eating him?"_ the other two watched him walk out and Olette stepped forward and said,

"My name's Olette. Hey, did you finish up the summer homework yet? Independent studies are the worst, huh?" Sora's blue eyes widened and he exclaimed,

"Homework?" He turned to Donald and Goofy, who just shook their heads. Then he turned to me and I just shrugged it off. As we turned towards the remaining to people, Pence asked,

"Hey, what're your names?" Goofy gestured to the appropriate people and introduced us to them,

"Oh, sorry. We're Sora, Donald, Aimée and Goofy." I smiled and waved as Sora greeted,

"Hey there." Pence and Olette looked at each other, my eyes narrowed slightly, then Olette told Sora,

"Sora, Donald, Goofy, we just met somone who was looking for you." Pence took over,

"He sure seemed in a hurry." he then started to mime a hood covering him, "He had a black coat on so I couldn't see his face, but..." then he mimed two circles above his head, "...he had these big round ears." Sora, Goof and Donald began to think who it could be.

_"OH. MY. FREAKING. GOD. Guys you know who this is, I bet even Demyx would be able to know who it is right away!"_ That's when thay all came to the same conclusion,

"The King!" they said in unison. Sora nodded to the both of them and asked,

"Where'd ya see him?"

"At the station." Pence answered it as if it was an obvious thing. The Keywielder nodded and said,

"The station! Thanks!" After deciding that the conversation was over, Olette said,

"Well, we'd better get back to that assignment." With that, she left the room with Pence running after her saying, "Later!" We watched them go out before Donald turned to Sora saying excitedly,

"Oh, boy! The King's trying to find us!"

"Yeah, let's get to the station!" they nodded and then turned to me, I lookked at them confused and raised a brow. "Aimée, can you take us to the station?" I nodded and said,

"Sure, let's go." We then began making our way to the station.

We made it to the station fairly quickly, before we could even reach the foot of the stairs Dusks started surrounding us. Sora summoned his Keyblade, Donald brandished his staff, Goofy drew his shield and I used my power to turn into a wolf. Bones starting popping out of place and changing shape, a pair of triangular ears started forming on top of my head, I sprouted a tail and brown fur started growing rapidly all over my body and it was covering my clothes as well.

Soon the transformation was a success the only thing that hadn't changed was my eye colour, they were still blue instead of the usual amber. The boys didn't even notice my new form, we just ran at the enemies and instigated our attacks. The battle was starting to take FOREVER! Every time we beat a Dusk more kept on replacing them, Creepers started joining too. Using their huge hands to shuffle along the ground, turning into a sword to attack and a shield to defend.

Everyone was starting to get tired, even I was starting to get tired from the strain of both the transformation and the fight. Goofy and Donald were the first to collapse from exhaustion, Sora followed and gradually me as my breathing was harder and my lungs were starting to burn. We were all back to back and my legs gave out, this gave the Dusks the opportunity to attack.

_"Come on Mickey, where are you?"_

One of the Nobodies lunged at Sora, he raised his Keyblade to block the attack but before the Dusk could even touch him a figure in a black Organization coat destroyed it and quickly finished off the rest of them. I looked over my shoulder when I heard a loud thump and Donald saying,

"Your Majesty?" Mickey brought a finger up to his lips and said quietly,

"Shh! You four have gotta board the train and leave town! The train knows the way." Still in my wolf form, I shoved the dog and duck off of Sora ignoring their protests and said,

"Look, I know you two are excited but Sora can't breathe," Sora grunted as he got up, Mickey took out an orange pouch and handed it to the boy as I turned back to normal, they probably didn't even realise that I changed shape,

"Here." after Sora took the object Mickey ran off towards the Market Street causing Donald to call in surprise,

"Your Majesty..." the duck ran after him a few steps but stopped when he was completely out of sight. A confused Sora asked,

"The King... Was that really him?"

"It coulda been... Yep, I know it was!" Goofy answered, I smirked at Donald's over excitement,

"Now we know he's okay!" Sora crossed his arms and thought back to the aftermath with Ansem.

"The King was locked in the realm of darkness, right?"

"Uh huh." Goofy confirmed.

"But we just saw him..." Sora tilted his head becoming even more confused.

"Yep." Donald quacked.

_"That's it Sora, put the pieces together."_

"And if the King is here, that means Riku's here!" Sora concluded excitedly.

"He's gotta be!" Donald nodded. Sora smiled and said,

"Well, I'm gonna go look for Riku. Then he and I can go back to the islands together. Kairi's there waiting for us! What are you two gonna do?" Goofy and Donald gave a frustrated sound and made a couple of faces that I had to restrain a laugh. Goofy looking kinda sad said,

"Gawrsh, Sora. Do ya have to ask?" Sora began to laugh and I started rolling on the floor laughing. Joining to Donald's indignation,

"Hey! What's so funny!" I calmed down while fighting back the giggles that threatened to escape as Sora answered, pointing to the two of them,

"Your face!" they looked at each other before laughing along with Sora. The brunette semmered down saying, "What do ya say guys? Let's stick together for one more journey." They nodded and they turned to me,

"What about you, Aimée? What're you gonna do?" I blinked as Sora asked. I frowned for a moment before smiling and answered,

"Well, I trying to find my way home and I don't know how. So I'll stick with you guys,"

"Welcome to the team, Aimée!" Goofy cheerfully exclaimed. Sora placed his hands behind his head and asked,

"To...where again?"

"We hafta board the train!" Goofy reminded.

"Oh yeah!" Donald slumped as if to say 'this is hopeless', he regained his posture when Sora gestured with his hand to follow him, "C'mon!" we then headed towards the inside of the large building that towered over us so we could get on the train. I limped due to my body being tired and sore from the fight, then I heard footsteps rapidly approaching, turning, I saw Hayner and his friends run up to me yelling,

"Hey!" I pointed to the entrance of the station and said,

"The three of them are inside, let's go." the trio nodded and we all went in to catch up with Sora. As soon as Hayner spotted Sora he yelled,

"Wait up!" while they were having their conversation I hobbled over to the stairs and limped up to the platform, I was already half way up them when I heard Sora say,

"I can't help feeling like we won't see this town again..." I turned and tited my head as I thought,

_"Silly boy, of course we'll see this place again!"_ Donald looked up at the boy curiously asking,

"Why not?" Goofy said,

"You're thinkin too much." He looked back at the other two and gave a slight smile,

"Yeah, you're right!" they began their ascention up the staircase, when Sora was level with me I told him,

"When you're ready to leave meet us at the train," he nodded and went off opening the chests that were scattered around this area. I went over to a chest he hadn't opened and kicked it, the box spat a potion at me which I caught and I placed it in my pocket. After a while Sora walked over to Donald, Goofy and me as we waited by the entrance of the purple and yellow train. Sora stopped in front of us and said,

"Okay, let's go!" we nodded and me and the two Disney characters went inside the locomotive to wait for Sora to say his goodbyes but before I did I waved at the two boys and girl and they responded with waves of their own. I literally flopped on to the seat and breathed a sigh of relief as I finally had something to rest on.

The door then closed as Sora got on and then we started moving, onwards to Yen Sid's Tower.


	9. Yen Sid's Tower

Chapter 9: Yen Sid's Tower

**Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts. Belongs to Square Enix.**

_**" "**_** - Conversations in my dreams**

* * *

The sunset's rays shone through the train's windows, casting a faint orange glow on our skins. I sat on an a seat that was just a few feet away from Sora and opposite of Donald and Goofy, leaning my head against the glass and staring at the sun.

Donald was looking at the floating pieces of lands we were passing by, Goofy joined in too and Sora was staring at the sky. I gave a sigh and thought,

_"What have I gotten myself into? One minute I'm hanging out in the virtual Twilight Town then the next I'm a train bound for Yen Sid's tower. Maybe this is becoming a little too much to handle... Nah.."_

The memories of hanging out with Roxas, Hayner, Pence and Olette flashed before my eyes, causing a wave of sadness to wash over me, and me having Roxas's theme song stuck in my head didn't help. My sight blurred as my eyes began welling up with tears before they started running down my cheeks.

"You know..." Sora started, we faced him and saw that he was holding the same blue crystal Roxas had won from the Struggle Tournament. That just made the tears flow even more as the memory of us all sitting on the clock tower flashed in my mind. He brought the orb down, stared at it and continued,

"I'm sad." my eyes were unblinking as I muttered to myself,

"So am I, Sora. So am I." Donald then reassurred his friend,

"We'll be back."

"Yeah. We can visit Hayner and those guys again." I turned my head for a moment and wiped away my tears, Donald and Goofy were right, we'd be able to see them again. A flash appeared outside the train and the sky had suddenly changed. It was now darker but was illuminated by swaying green auroras. Seeing as the train ride was gonna be while, I might as well get some rest.

I curled up on the seat where I sat waiting for fatigue to take over.

I stared out of the window as the passing polar lights were slowly drifting away, my eyes slowly drooping and eventually closing, the sounds of the rattling train tracks fading from my hearing until there was nothing but darkness.

* * *

_(Dream Sequence)_

_All I could see was darkness, an empty black void surrounding me that seemed to go on forever. I took a step forward, the sound of my footstep landing on the ground echoed before dying out. Where was I now? A few moments later, I heard something, it sounded like a voice but it was inaudible and far away. I didn't exactly know where it came from so I just wandered off in any direction, hoping that eventually the voice would become louder. Soon enough, the words I couldn't hear before were spoken again._

_**"Aimée... this... way..."**__ I instantly recognised the voice. Roxas! Who else would be voiced by Jesse McCartney? It sounded like it came from my left so I ran in that direction. As my footsteps echoed in this black void my friends just continued to guide me, there was a small bright light coming into view as I got closer. As the light became bigger, I could see a white room ahead and eventually I reached it._

_The entite room was a plain snow white colour, a medium sized rectangular table stood in the centre with three chairs against it, the walls were covered with different pictures. With me having a love for art, I couldn't resist having a little gaze at them. There were a few pictures I've seen in the game; an image of Castle Oblivion, the heads of Sora, Donald and Goofy, Roxas standing next to Axel and Sora and his Nobody facing each other. But there was one that didn't seem familiar; it portrayed the image of a girl with long brown hair dressed in black, one of her hands holding Dusk's dagger shaped limb while the other held the clawed appendage of a Shadow and there were multiple hearts that had an individual colour._

_**"You finally made it."**__ Roxas said. I jumped in surprise and turned to see my first friend and a blond haired girl around his age with blue eyes and wearing a white dress was standing next to him. A smile appeared on my face as I greeted them,_

_**"Hi Roxas!"**__ I cocked my head at the other blond and asked, __**"You're Naminé, right? Nice to meet you, I'm Aimée."**__ I extended my hand, she did the same and we shook. Namine had a sweet smile on her face and replied back,_

_**"It's nice to meet you too."**_

_**"Aimée, there's something we need to talk to you about."**__ I was confused, what did they want to say? They sat in the two chairs opposite the single one, I pulled out the seat and sat down, dragging the chair in a bit so I could be closer to the table. I rested my forearms on the wood and listened intently to what they were about to discuss._

_**"Aimée, do you know what Organization XIII is?" **__Roxas questioned. I was about to answer but I had to reprimand myself, I had to keep my knowledge about Kingdom Hearts and everything to do with it a secret. I shook my head slowly and asnwered,_

_**"Not really. Why? Are they after me?"**__ Roxas and Naminé's eyes filled with worry, my hunch was right._

_**"Yes. Organization XIII.."**__ Naminé began, __**"They want you because you can make them whole again. That is your power as the Keeper of Hearts."**__ Again with that title, 'Keeper of Hearts'._

_**"As you may already know, Organization XIII is a group of Nobodies, beings without hearts. But they are different, if a Somebody has their heart taken by a Heartless then the body left behind will act on its own, but if they have a strong enough will they'll still look like their original selves but with a few minor differences."**__ Roxas explained._

_**"Is that what I should be worried about?"**__ I asked._

_**"No, you have to be careful around them. They're stronger than the lesser Nobodies, they each control a certain attribute. That makes them more dangerous in battle."**_

_**"Thanks for the info, I'll keep that in mind."**_

_**"Please be careful, they'll do anything to get their hands on you. Only you can save them from oblivion if you think they are worthy."**__ Naminé pleaded. I gave a glance and smiled at her, I reassurred them,_

_**"Don't worry, I'll be fine. Besides I've got Sora, Donald and Goofy with me."**__ I then heard another voice echoing, this time it was Sora, urging me to wake up. I rose from my seat and said, __**"Well I better get going. I'll see you two soon."**__ I began to walk towards the white door and I made for the handle._

_**"Just one more thing before you go."**__ Roxas said. I stopped in my tracks and looked over my shoulder to the blond. __**"If you see a spiky redhead let him know I said 'Hi'. He might not be feeling too talkative right now but if you get to know him more, he's an alright guy."**__ I smirked and guessed,_

_**"Axel? Don't worry I'll tell him. I'm going to try and reach out to him because I think the best thing he needs is a friend right now."**__ With that being said, I gripped the handle, pulled it down and opened the door and I stepped back into the dark._

* * *

"Aimée, wake up. We're here." Sora whispered. I groaned and reluctantly opened my eyes, not wanting to wake up yet but I had to. I could see from the windows that the sky was now a mixture of orange and dark blue with mounds of green levitating about. I pushed myself up and let out a tired yawn as I stretched my stiff limbs and heard small clicks from my spine. We walked outside and looked around. As we walked away from the tracks Sora stopped half way and glanced back at the train, watching it vanish.

I scoffed and Sora laughed nervously before saying,

"There goes our ride..." I blinked a few times before saying,

"Well it's not going to magically come back anytime soon if you just keep staring at the tracks." he gave an embarrassed chuckle and we headed towards the tower infront of us. Sora found a few red and yellow tresaure chests and opened them with the Kingdom Key, obtaining the items stored inside. I wanted to unlock some chests too but there weren't that many left, and feeling a little left out, I called out to Sora. "Sora, save some boxes for me will ya?" I ran to the nearest shut one I could find and kicked it open, a potion was spat in my face, the concoction bounced off my face and landed in the palm of my hands. The blow left a red mark on the bridge of my nose. I grumbled a little before depositing it in my pocket.

When I turned to head back to my new friends my eyes narrowed at the sight of Pete blocking the entrance. I joined up with my friends just in time to hear what he was about to say.

"What's going on?" Donald asked.

"I sent some of my lackeys inside to see if the master of this here tower's as big and tough as they say." Pete explained. I raised a brow and thought to myself,

_"Oh, come on! Surely Pete would recognise whose voice that was, they're enemies. But then again.. the guy is a rather stupid."_

"Word is, he's a real powerful sorcerer. Which would make him the perfect bodyguard for me. See, it don't matter how tough he is- once he's a Heartless, he'll do as I say!" We were taken aback by his purpose and Donald questioned,

"A Heartless?" Pete then proceeded to give us a little information what the Heartless are.

"That's right. They're those things that come outta the darkness in folks' hearts. Why, with all those Heartless at her side, my dear friend Maleficent is gonna conquer everything! And since I got me a debt to repay. I'm goin' 'round to a bunch of different worlds and buildin' an army of Heartless, special for her." He then said, "Why am I talkin' to you pipsqueaks anyway? Go on, scram! I'm behind schedule as it is." Goofy then suggested to him,

"You oughta find somethin' nicer to do."

"And who do you think you are telling us to scram?" I yelled. Pete turned around to see who was talking to him, frowning at us and retorted,

"Says who?" when he saw us his expression changed to that of shock, anger and irritation. "Wha...AAAH! It's you!" he exclaimed. Goofy and Donald jumped in surprise and gasped,

"Pete!" the anthropromorphic cat pointed his finger at the two of them and growled,

"What are you two nimrods doin' here!" Donald glared at him and quacked,

"What are YOU doing here?" Sora looked at them confused and asked,

"You know him?" Goofy turned to the brunette and informed him about Pete's bad reputation,

"We sure do! Pete's been causin' trouble for ages! His Majesty banished him to another dimension a long time ago. I wonder how he escaped." Pete gave a sinister laugh.

"You wanna know, eh? Well, Maleficent busted me out, that's how!" he revealed. "And now your world, no, no, no all the worlds- are gonna belong to yours truly. Cause Maleficent's gonna help me conquer 'em!"

"Maleficent... huh." Sora said. They began laughing as though it was their own little joke, I just smirked and laughed silently.

"What are you laughin' at! Why, Maleficent's power is so great-" Before Pete could finish his sentence, Sora interrupted him by breaking the news to him.

"She's toast."

"Sorry, but Maleficent can't help ya now." Goofy added.

"Whaddya mean!" Pete still didn't get what we were trying to get across to him but quickly realised. "You! So you're the ones that did it!" Sora crossed his arms behind his head and wore a grin on his face as he vaguely admitted,

"Well... we mighta had something to do with it." The fat cat became frustrated and called for his Heartless goons.

"Heartless Squad! Round up!" At his command, multiple Shadows rose from the ground. Antennas twitching, round yellow eyes scanning the area and clawed fingers flexing just itching to tear into something, namely us. Sora, Donald and Goofy summoned their weapons, ready for the fight. Just like the fight with the Dusks, I turned my nails into sharp, curved claws. We all rushed at them as they ran towards us, me and Sora cut them in half with blades and talons, Goofy rammed into them with his shield and Donald casted a few thunder spells, each Heartless vanishing in a cloud of inky smoke. Each Heartless we killed dropped a certain amount munny on to the ground which collected so we could spend it later.

Pete was furious when we finished off his little team and he started throwing a little tantrum,

"You just wait! Nobody, and I mean nobody, messes with the mighty Pete!" I scoffed, giggled a little bit and asked,

"So "mighty Pete", who lives in this tower, anyway?"

"Oh, ya don't know, eh? Well it's old Yen Sid. 'Course he's probably a Heartless by now!" he said with a smirk on his face. Donald shook his head and asked in disbelief,

"Master Yen Sid lives here?" he ran towards the tower as fast as he possibly could and entered the abode through the tall wooden doors.

"Yen Sid is the King's teacher!" Goofy told us.

"Wow. Sounds powerful!" Sora marvelled. The three of us sped off to catch up with the duck, leaving Pete bewildered and reaching out his hand as if to stop us and making his jaw drop, he then started stomping around and growling in anger. The ground floor of the tower looked a little small and cramped to me, most of the interior was an orangey light brown colour, one giant greenish pillar stood near the stairs and the staircase as white and twisting up and around the stone beam. I spotted a chest hiding behind the pillar and I couldn't resist opening it, another potion popped out of it and I stored it in my pocket for later. We wasted no more time and ran up the stairs towards the higher levels of the tower.

When we exited the first portal, we ended up on a staircase that floated in the air above us were more steps leading to other rooms and portals. I gawked at the sight, I mean, I've seen this place when I played the game but now that I was seeing it first hand I was amazed. As we ran up each step we fought Heartless along the way until we reached another glowing green vortex. Now we entered a perfectly round room, I think this one was the Moon Chamber since there were luminescent cresent moons covering the walls. Another group of the dark creatures appeared before us and we readily charged into battle. After we defeated them, I had acquired a few more gashes, mainly on my legs. I grabbed the health orbs that fell on the ground and pressed them against my wounds, they phased into the injuries and instantly healed them with a healthy green glow and the stinging pain just faded into a faint numbness.

"Heartless, Heartless, Heartless! Things haven't changed one bit!" Donald ranted.

"Well, it's a good thing we're on the job, then." Goofy said.

"So, the worlds aren't at peace after all?" Sora asked in disbelief. I sighed and muttered,

"Obviously not." they turned to me and asked,

"Did you say something?"

"It's nothing. I was just talking to myself. Shouldn't we get going?" the three boys nodded and we exited the room and carried on to our destination.

We were soon accompanied by more Purebloods and Emblems, we battled them all the way up until we reached Yen Sid's Study. The two humanoid animals rushed into the room and Sora just slowly waltzed in with his hands behind his head casually looking around, Donald and Goofy stood at attention, I however, hid behind the door and tried not to be seen. They bowed before the man sitting at the desk.

Yen Sid was an old man with a very large grey beard, he was all dressed in blue. He gave a slight nod before Donald spoke,

"Master Yen Sid! It's an honor!"

"Hey there!" Sora casually greeted, Donald and Goofy looked up at him in surprise.

"Sora! Show some respect!" the duck scolded. The sorcerer leaned forward and waved his hands to tell Donald to calm down, he spotted me watching from behind the wooden doors and gestured for me to come in before resting his hands in his lap. I came out of hiding and joined up with my friends avoiding eye contact and keeping my head lowered as I hesitantly greeted him,

"H..hello." He observed us for a second or two before saying in a deep voice,

"So you are Sora. Now then, have you seen the King yet?" I dug my hands into my jean pockets, waiting for Goofy to answer.

"Yes, we did, Master. But we didn't get a chance to talk to him."

"Yes... the King has been quite busy of late," he glanced at me then the rest of us. "Therefore, it would seem that the task of teaching you four falls upon my shoulders. You have a perilous journey ahead of you. You must be well prepared." he warned us.

"You mean... we have to go on another quest?" Sora asked. "I was looking forward to finding my friend Riku, so we could go back to the islands."

_"Don't worry Sora. I'm sure you'll be able to find Riku, then when this is all over you can go back home."_

"Yes, I know. However, everything in your journey, Sora, is connected. Whether you will find your way home to the islands... Whether you will return alone or with your friend... And, whether or not the islands will still be there." I could see that Sora was becoming depressed so I decided to cheer him up.

"Of course the islands are gonna be there! When you defeated Ansem, you restored all the worlds devoured by the Heartless, including Destiny Islands!" They all stared at me in shock, and it just dawned on me of what I said.

"And how do you know about what transpired a year ago?" Yen Sid asked curiously.

"I.. uhh... call it friend's intuition." I stated nervously. They eyed me suspiciously, for a moment before Yen Sid carried on.

"And the key that connects them all is you, Sora."

"I'm... the key?" he repeated as he took in all this information. He held his hand out and in a flash of light, the Keyblade appeared in his grip.

"Chosen wielder of the Keyblade! You are the key that will open the door to light." the brunette nodded in response. The old man looked to Donald and Goofy, with them standing straight like soldiers and nodding. He waved his hand and a puff of smoke appeared with a book taking its place when it cleared up. It was a thick and heavy looking book with a moon on the cover. He waved his hand again, making the book levitate and turn to face us as he explained, "This book contains valuable knowledge you will need for your journey. Study it carefully." he opened the book to the appropriate pages. "Once you have finished, we will speak of the enemies you will surely confront."

With that being said Sora began to read through the texts. While he was doing that, I opened up more chests and I ended up acquiring a map of the Mysterious Tower. Once I had done that, I walked back over to Sora and started reading the book with him. After we finished reading, Yen Sid began to explain to us about the Heartless, Nobodies and Organization XIII.

"Then I guess we better go find the King first!" Sora said. Donald crossed his arms and with a puzzled expression pondered,

"But where could he be?"

"Well, we won't know 'til we look." Goofy said. A glimmer of hope appeared in Sora's eyes,

"Yeah. And the King must know where Riku is, 'cause the two of them were together in the realm of darkness when we closed the door. You know, after defeating Ansem."

"So, before you go, you will need more suitable travelling clothes. Those look a bit too small for you." Yen Sid pointed out, Sora looked himself over realising that he had outgrown his clothes. I laughed and added,

"Yeah, you look like you're wearing short weekends!" he shot a confused look at me and asked,

"Short what?" I stopped for a minute before saying,

"Sorry, British nationality kicking in. It means clothes that don't fit you anymore or are too short."

"Oh yeah, well you look like you've just been attacked by a Heartless." he retorted.

"We were attacked by Heartless! Remember?"

"Through there, you'll find three good fairies. If you ask, they'll create for you appropriate garments."

"Gawrsh, Sora, you sure are growing fast." Goofy noted.

"Uh, I guess..." he chuckled in embarrassment and scratched the back of his head.

* * *

We moved through the door silently closing it with a slight thump.

"Me, you guys, Riku, and the King. I don't care who this Organization is or what it's planning. With the six of us- I mean, the seven of us- there's nothing to about. Right?" Sora said.

"Yeah!" we agreed. We walked over to the three fairies to ask them for some new clothes. They turned to us and Flora, the one in red, said,

"Well, look who's here, dears! Sora, Donald, and Goofy!" I felt a little left out when they didn't notice me but when they did Flora said, "And look who we have here, what a lovely young girl." The one in blue, Merryweather, stepped forward saying,

"Ooh, if you're looking for clothes, you've come to the right place!"

"I'll do the designing!" Fauna exclaimed. Flora and Merryweather took me and Sora by our hands and lead us forward a bit. Fauna gave a flick of her wand and a small stream of magic flew towards the spiky haired brunette, changing his clothes to green.

"Oh, that will never do!" Merryweather protested. She waved her wand and now his clothes had changed to blue.

"Now, now, dears." Flora said. She cast another spell that turned Sora's clothes pink. I snorted behind my hands trying to stop laughing and to hide my smile. This carried on for a while before I asked irritatedly,

"Can you just decide already?" the fairies were taken aback and glanced at each other before Flora said,

"All right, then. Together now, dears. No more squabbling!" they cast a spell each and streams of red, green and blue twirled around one another and Sora shone with a blinding white light. When the flash disappeared, Sora now stood wearing his KH 2 attire. The fairies compliment on the new duds.

"Oh, my!"

"Ooh, it's lovely!"

"Oh, yes! He does looks very dashing!" The boy gazed at his clothes with a pleased smile. "Now, those aren't ordinary garments."

"They have very special powers." Fauna said. Flora then flicked her wand and a yellow orb appeared before Sora. The red fairy instructed him to take it, the floating sphere was absorbed and Sora's clothes changed again, but this time into his Valor form. When he found that he had a new Keyblade in his other hand he jumped in surprise. The two Disney characters stared in awe.

"What about me?" I asked sadly. They gasped, as they concentrated so much on my friend's clothing that they forgot about me. But he is the Keyblade Master after all.

"We're sorry, dear. We forgot." Flora apologised. Just like before, they used their wands at the same time and my torn garments flashed white. When the glow faded I stared in amazement. I now wore a black hooded coat that just reached down to my ankles, it was similar to the Organization's except it had white flame patterns around the bottom, very dark blue t-shirt with silver Nobody symbols covering it, black trousers, black fingerless gloves, a black and white chessboard pattern band on my left wrist, the Nobody symbol on my belt, I felt a choker around my neck it was red in colour and it had a gold heart on it with the kingdom crown in the centre, a small black and red Heartless insignia shaped earring dangling from my right ear lobe and I had a pair of white trainers with streaks of red and black that had a zip running down the front.

I could feel my smile widen as I looked at my brand new clothes, the fairies were proud of the work.

"I love it! Thank you so much!" I thanked joyfully.

"Your welcome." Fauna said.

"I like the new look." Sora said, I blushed a little bit and gave him a thumbs up.

"This journey's gonna be twice as difficult as your last." Merryweather told us. Sora sighed heavily and hunched over slightly upon hearing about the difficulty of his mission.

"Your garments also have other powers- but you will have to discover what they are as you continue on your journey." Flora stated. Sora nodded saying,

"Okay, I'll do my best. And thanks a lot!"

"Oh, and there's something else for you- from Master Yen Sid." Donald and Goofy jumped in anticipation,

"Oh boy!" Donald quacked excitedly.

* * *

As we walked out of the wardrobe room we saw Yen Sid standing by star and moon shaped windows. Beckond us to come over to him with his hand, a red and yellow ship hover up to the window.

"Hey! It's the Gummi Ship!" Donald yelled. We all rushed towards it joining the sorcerer, after looking at for a few seconds Sora asked us,

"So you guys ready to go?" Me and the other two nodded and we jumped into a straight line side by side.

"Now, now, just a moment." We all loosened up a bit to hear what else he had to say. "Because of your previous endeavours, the worlds have returned to their original states. That means the pathways between them have disappeared."

"How do we get around?" Donald inquired.

"Do not fear. If what the King suspected proves true, the worlds have prepared new pathways along which you may travel. These paths can be utilised by unlocking special gates. How these gates are opened, I'm afraid I do not know... However the Keyblade may serve as your guide. When a beam of light radiates from the Keyblade, return to the Gummi Ship." he instructed us. "Though the worlds may seem far apart and out of reach, they nonetheless remain connected by invisible ties. As do our hearts."

"Our hears are connected." Sora answered. Yen Sid smiled and said,

"That is correct."

"Got it!" the blue clad man then warned us,

"But be warned. As you proceed... The Heartless and Nobodies will be using their own paths: Corridors of darkness, to travel from world to world. They may be attempting to link these dark pathways to the gates between the worlds."

"Hey, that's not fair!" Donald pouted.

"Now then, that is all the information I can give to you. Go forth, Sora, Donald, Goofy, and Aimée." My eyes narrowed in shock, how did he know my name when I haven't even told him. Any who, we saluted him and headed off to the Gummi Ship. However, I was halted by the old man. "Aimée.. you must be more cautious of Organization XIII, you are the key to making them whole again."

"Why I am I being targeted by the Nobodies? What exactly is a Keeper of Hearts?" I asked, I was already aware of why I'm being chased after but wanted to know more.

"The Keeper of Hearts is a being of pure light with the ability to restore the hearts of those who have lost theirs."

"So I'm able to give back a Nobody's heart?"

"Precisely, and one such as yourself isn't easy to come by and appear during times of dire crisis. You will have Nobodies relentlessy attack you more than the Heartless, so never let your guard down. Remember, you are the judge over their actions, their fate is in your hands." I just stared as I comprehended this extra info. "But heed my warning, there will be many more perils ahead of you, even after you have returned to your world." I nodded and ran off to reunite with the trio. Knowing that Yen Sid will vanish.

When I reached the Gummi, Sora, Donald and Goofy were waiting for me. When I got close to the ship, I wondered about something.

"What's taking her so long?" Donald growled irritatedly.

"I'll go check." Sora said, he walked over to where I was standing and he raised a brow when he saw me gnawing on the side of the ship. "What're you doing?" he asked. I turned to him and answered,

"Well, this thing has the word 'Gummi' in it so I thought it was edible. And it doesn't taste like it sounds." the blue eyed brunette cocked his head and said,

"You're weird." I just giggled and replied,

"It's such a wonderful thing, isn't it? Well, let's get going!" he nodded and we entered the Gummi Ship to head off to our next world, Hollow Bastion.

* * *

**Whooo! Sorry for the long wait guys, but GCSE's are coming up and I've gotta get a college application before it's too late. Thank you all for your patience, but I've got to go now cuz Aqua's trying to eat the glass cups again. He's sends hugs to you all!**


	10. Hollow Bastion

Chapter 10: Hollow Bastion

**Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts or its characters, they belong to Square Enix.**

**Yes, we all know the drill with disclaimers but moving on. Shout going out to all my reviewers; Rexa13, ultima-owner, Kaelyn the Hedgehog, RadonMax, TheGirlNextDoor523, roxy mccartney and newest addition, vanpire, you've all been great! Sorry for the wait but I've now finished my work experience and I was working 7 hours a day from 10am - 5pm in my mum's fish pedicure shop. Don't let the sound of it fool you we don't give massages to fish, you just dip your feet in a tank, the fish eat dead/hard/sky off your feet and hands then you get a complimentary foot rub afterwards.**

**Enjoy the latest chapter!**

* * *

Four hours, one abnormality test and a cat nap later, we finally arrived in Hollow Bastion. The trio rushed out of their ship to get a glance of the world, I lazily walked out out while dragging my feet across the ground and scatching the back of my head. I looked around and gawked at the scenery, sure it was really damaged but it was still pretty to look at. Am I right?

The sky was a mixture of three colours, orange, pink and purple. A large demolished castle stood before us, it was mainly white in colour with a large tower still standing, there were other parts of building that were held up by the cranes I could make out. I bet before it was ruined it must've looked beautiful. I smiled at the boys' excitement,

"It's Hollow Bastion!" Sora said excitedly.

"Garwsh, it looks kinda different now." Goofy added as he looked around slightly.

"I hope Leon and the gang are doing okay." Donald said. At the mention of one of my favourite Final Fantasy characters I let out an thrilled squeal but made it quiet enough so that the boys barely heard me. Goofy looked to one of the distant buildings and spotted a pair of Soldiers standing on top of one of the buildings' roof before jumping and disappearing in orbs of darkness. As we turned to face him, he warned us,

"Uh-oh. Looks like we're gonna have to do some fightin'." before we headed towards the marketplace, I thought to myself,

_"Goofy you... goof, it's obvious that were going to fight there's freakin' Heartless and Nobodies running around!"_ We ran down the stone stairs and into the square, I glanced at the shops around us, wooden signs with different images painted in white including a staff, a shield, a sword and clothing or armour. There was also a shop had coloured pictures of rings above the counter. When we neared a giant freezer I called out for the boys to stop for a moment while I buy a few things. I walked over to the shop opposite to it and purchased a few potions and ethers for fights to come. Before we continued to... the Borough, that's it! I couldn't resist hugging that little Moogle floating next to the store.

It struggled in my grip as well as for breath and yelled,

"Let go of me, kupo!" on its order I released my grip and set it back down on the floor. It brushed itself off and I patted the red pompom on its head with an apologetic smile.

"Sorry, I've got a weakness for cute things." It looked up at me and said,

"Wow, you sure are strange, kupo. My name's Mog, synthesizer at your service, kupo."

"Nice to meet you, I'm Aimée."

"If you ever need a new weapon or accessory made just ask any Moogle you find and they'll make it for you," he cocked his head to the side to see past me and looked right at the trio waiting for me. "And your friends, kupo."

I smiled and replied,

"Wow, thanks Mog! I gotta get going now, see ya later!" Mog waved at me and bid farewell too. Sora, Donald and Goofy stared at me oddly, I quirked and asked,

"What?"

"Why did ya hug that Moogle?" Goofy questioned. I chuckled a bit and answered,

"Oh, I couldn't help it he was so cute!"

"What about us?" Sora asked, feigning jealousy. I laughed and said,

"Aww, am I forgetting you guys? Come 'ere." I gave Sora a hug, nuzzling his spiky brown locks and making him blush a little, then Donald, then Goofy. After I had given them an embrace we once again headed to our destination. We soon walked under a stone archway that had bronze pipes coming out of it and connected to generator like machines. We stopped and scanned our surrounding for a few seconds, then out of nowhere a cylindrical hologram appeared and started circling us with an orb occasionally appearing in its centre.

"Hey, what's going on?" Donald inquired. I knew right about this time, Yuffie would answer his question.

"That's the town's defense mechanism." A new voice said.

_"Right on cue."_ We looked around to see where he voice came from, we glanced up and found the ninja herself stood on top of one of the ledges with a big smile on her face.

"Yuffie!" Sora exclaimed in surprise. She gave a kind of saluting wave before warning us,

"Look out!" Sora turned his head to spot a Dusk slithering towards him and swiping at the brunette as he summoned the Kingdom Key, he missed when it jumped back and four more circled us. Before we attacked, I decided to turn into a velociraptor. My four fings merged into two and thumbs extended along with my nails turning into claws. Beige scales covered my hands, face and feet, and white primitive feathers covered my body. I grew a stiff tail, my teeth became thinner, longer and sharper and one toe on each foot turned into a menacing sickle claw.

We sprang into action, attacking the Nobodies with everything we had with the defense mechanism aiding us. I lunged at one of them and only just managing to tear into its side with my claws. I pounced on the one I just injured and sank my teeth into its neck and my sickle claws piercing its chest, as it fell to the ground due to my weight, I yanked my head up taking a chunk of its throat with me. The Dusk writhed and shook beneath me before disappearing in a crackling silvery light.

Turning around, I spotted two Dusks charging at me, just a few mere steps away from me. Before I could get out of the way, one of them managed to rake its hand along the left side of my muzzle, the point tracing the curved underside of my eye and stopping near my earhole and the other Dusk stabbed me in my shoulder. Due to being in my velociraptor form, I let out a pained dinosaurian screech as blood oozed out of my wounds. After the Dusk took out its hand the stinging and throbbing began kicking in, making me clench my teeth to bear with the pain and growl in anger.

I then felt the lessers grab me by my wrists and trying to drag me away from the others. I thrashed and pressed my feet into the ground to hinder their movements, that did about as much good as trying put a band-aid on my stab wound. My claws just made white scratch trails behind me and I couldn't afford to have my sickle claw become dull so I couldn't let it touch the stone below. The others rushed to my aid, Sora slashed at the two Nobodies with his Keyblade, managing to nick one of them on the arm.

It let go of me as did the other one, dodging my friend's weapon. I took this chance to lunge at one of the Nobodies and tear it to pieces as Sora finished off the second. I looked around and when I saw that there weren't any enemies left, I let out a sigh of relief as I clutched my injured shoulder.

"Aimee, are you okay?" Sora asked, I looked up at my friend from my now three foot stature and gave a shaky nod as a single tear slid down my face. The bleeding was starting to slow down but I needed to heal fast before it got infected. I directed my gaze up to the ninja when she greeted us,

"Hey, you guys!" she waved before jumping off the ledge, landing in front of us with a light thud. "I see you're still in top form." Sora beat a fist against his chest and replied cockily,

"What'd you expect? Looks like you're doing okay." Yuffie placed her hands on her hips and mimicked what he'd just said,

"Well, what'd YOU expect?"

"How are the others?" Donald asked.

"Great!" She answered. The ninja looked down at me curiously and asked,

"Who're you and what are you?" I blinked and said as I pointed to myself with a clawed finger,

"I'm Aimée. It's a pleasure to meet you, Yuffie. Oh, and the animal I am now is a Velociraptor, one of my favourite animals!" She raised a brow. Goofy then spoke up,

"Y'know, you can turn back to normal now." I glanced over before shaking my head in response and saying,

"Well, I would but unfortunately.. I can't be bothered. Besides it's just gonna put more strain on my body at the moment." Sora then questioned her,

"Hey, Yuffie. Have you seen the King and Riku?"

"Nope." She said as she began walking off, Sora slumped in disappointment. Yuffie turned around to face us and added, "But I had a feeling I'd see you guys again." the Keyblade Master perked up a bit then quoted what Leon had said to him a year ago and mimicking his movements.

"'We may never meet again, but we'll never forget each other.'" The ninja smiled and pointed at him,

"Is that supposed to be Leon?" she inquired. Me, Donald and Goofy started laughing as the brunette stood rather proudly about his impression of his other friend. "Everybody's working on stuff over at Merlin's house. C'mon!" with that being said she took off to the wizard's home. Soon after, we did too, although we had to get past more Heartless along the way. We didn't have far to go it was literally just around the corner. I could feel my body tensing with anticipation as I couldn't wait to meet the rest of the Final Fantasy gang but I was also nervous.

We arrived shortly after and when we opened the wooden door, we were greeted by a cheerful Yuffie.

"Meet the Hollow Bastion Restoration Committee!" she gestured to three individuals standing infront of a computer, they turned around to face us and began greeting us. Starting with Aerith.

"We missed you!"

"Well, if you ain't in top shape."

"I knew it." The three boys and two girls, including me, ran forward to close the distance between them while I hid behind Sora's legs out of shyness. I edged part of my face out from behind him so I could see them while remaining hidden.

"Knew what?" Sora asked curiously. Leon filled him in,

"A while back, everyone suddenly remembered you guys, all at the same time." Sora, Donald and Goofy jumped back in surprise, with Sora landing on my foot. I stopped myself from hollering in pain and staggered back a bit with my right foot still under his shoe.

_"I knew it was a bad idea to stand behind when I knew he was gonna do that."_ I thought to myself. Sora then repeated,

"You... remembered? Wait! Does that mean you forgot about us!" Donald frowned and exclaimed,

"Thanks!" I gripped Sora's pant leg and muttered his name to try and get his attention but before he could hear me Yuffie interrupted,

"So where've you guys been all this time?"

"We were sleepin'." Goofy explained.

"Where? In cold storage?" Cid joked. They looked a little embarrassed but I wasn't taking much notice as I was still trying to get the Keyblader's attention. I tugged again as well as saying his name a little louder, becoming a little agitated that he still didn't notice.

_"I know how oblivious he can be, but man I'm in pain here!"_ I yelled inside my head.

"It doesn't matter. This is great. Everyone's together again!" Aerith said joyfully. Once again, Sora proceeded to ask them if they had seen Riku or Mickey. The three adults shook their heads and Sora lowered his head in disappointment. I took the opportunity to yell,

"SORA!" the Keyblade Master glanced down at me in confusion until I told him, "You're standing on foot!" my voice broke a little due to the pain. When he looked down and saw his foot on top of mine he instantly raised it to let me have it back. I growled and he gave me an apologetic look. The rest of them who hadn't met me introduced themselves as I did to them. When Leon had said that Hollow Bastion's got problems, we instantly deduced it was the Heartless and Nobodies.

**(Sorry to all those reading it, but I can't write the rest of that whole cutscene so I'll just skip ahead. I really apologise for this.)**

After I had turned back into my true form, we walked over to where Leon was standing. We looked over the stone balcony to where Maleficent's headquarter was, a mass of ink black bodies and yellow beady eyes filled the chasm surrounding it. Heartless, thousunds of them. Leon began explaining,

"We want to restore Hollow Bastion to what it used to be. Who knows - maybe even something better. There's still a lot to do, but I'm sure we can handle everything- Except... for that..." he then pointed to the ground below, "And that." he was referring to the two Dusks that were slinking their way to the chasm.

"We'll handle 'em." Sora assured. Leon smiled and replied,

"Well, that's good to hear. So, Sora. Do you know what's going on then?" Sora then told him the situation at hand,

"here's this guy, Pete, who's been going around plotting with the Heartless. But he's not smart enough to tie his own shoes. The ones we need to worry about are the Nobodies."

"And those Organization XIII guys in charge, too!" Goofy added. Then an unfamiliar voice rang out,

"You called?" We looked around to find the source of the voice but when we could find none, we headed back into the main part of the bailey where we drew our weapons. Well, for me I just changed hands so they became sharp scythes, like a Scyther's. Another joined in,

"You're doing well." From what I remember, that was Saix. Then the first one spoke again,

"This calls for a celebration..." after that, a group of Dusks appeared before us. The gates began closing, denying any form of entry or exit. The Nobodies immediately headed for the iron bars that blocked them and we gave chase, hacking at them with all we had. Just like before, they were more interested in attacking me than the others, they were coming at me from every direction and I was just swinging the scythes that replaced my hands like crazy, trying to keep them at a reasonable distance. Donald and Goofy were defending the gate while Sora nd Leon were helping me with getting rid of these pesky Dusks. Things just started getting tougher when the Roxas's lessers showed up, the Samurais.

After a few decapitations and some minor scrapes we finally managed to fend off the remaining few. I morphed my hands back into their original forms and looked over to the four boys with me, I gave them a thumbs up and said,

"That was some great fighting back there!" Most of the boys smiled at my compliment, then I added, "Now let's get otta here and find out where those voices came from." They nodded and we headed out to the exit so we could meet Organization XIII face to face.


	11. Warm Heart

Chapter 11: Warm Heart

**Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts or its characters.**

**Okay readers, this is the chapter where something interesting happens but you'll have to find out what. Enjoy.**

**Before I forget. Sora, guys get in here! (Sora and everyone featured so far walk into the room) We all wish you a very Merry Christmas..**

**All: And a Happy New Year!**

* * *

After we finished off the rest of the Nobodies attacking the gate, we heard voices outside.

"The Keyblade... a truly marvelous weapon. Were it only in more... capable hands..." a deep ominous voice said, it was then followed by multiple laughs. I laughed to myself when I heard a higher sounding laugh.

_"Heh heh heh, Demy evil laugh." _Me, Sora, Donald and Goofy rushed outside to see where the voice was coming from and looked around.

"Show yourselves!" Sora demanded. As if on cue a dark portal appeared and disappeared to reveal a man dressed in black standing on the concrete ledge. Sora glared at him, the figure raised his arms and several portals appeared and in their places were other Nobodies, I presumed Axel was up there as well.

"Organization XIII!" Goofy exclaimed, he, Sora and Donald looked at each other with serious looks on their faces and Sora looked back at the group of Nobodies and yelled,

"Good. Now we can settle this!"

"What a shame... And here I thought we could be friends." The first one said, he and the others laughed as they disappeared again. Donald jumped in the air and ordered,

"Stop!" he ran towards the stone steps in an attempt to chase, we followed but it was futile, a portal opened up infront of Donald blocking his path as another Organization member appeared, it was Xigbar. Donald looked up and saw that they were gone,

"What's the big idea!" Donald asked. The Nobody waved his arms and replied,

"Oopsy-daisy!"

"Move!" Sora commanded. Xigbar seemed a little hurt by his statement and asked sarcastically with his surfer accent as he pointed to himself,

"Now do you think that's polite, shutting me down like that?" Sora was clearly getting more frustrated,

"I said get outta the way!" Xigbar crossed one of his arms across his chest and said,

"As if! You can talk all you want but that won't change a thing." The boys got into fighting stances and Donald brandished his wand and threatened,

"Then we're gonna MAKE you move!" Xigbar crossed his other arm against his chest and explained,

"See, that would work if - I were just any old dude. 'Cept I'm not. I'm with the Organization, nothing "any old" about me." Sora gave a laugh and said,

"Ha! Tough for someone who stood on the sidelines while his Nobody flunkys did the fighting!" Xigbar placed his hands on his hips and said,

"Oh, dear. I think you got the wrong impression." Sora continued to glare at him as he waggled his finger at my friend.

"You gonna cry?" Sora sarcastically asked. I just gave a sigh as I rolled my eyes, shook my head and face-palmed.

Xigbar waved a hand before placing it on his chest. "As if! Why don't I remind you how tough the crowd you're dealing with really is?" Sora straightened a little, obviously confused,

"Remind me?" I looked to him and cautioned him,

"Don't let him psych you out Sora, he's just trying to make you mad." He nodded and got back into a fighting stance and glared at the second ranking Nobody. Upon seeing the brunette's face, he gave a "hearty" laugh and pointed at him,

"That's RIGHT, he used to give me that exact same look." Sora scoffed,

"I guess you can psych me out by saying really random stuff!" the older male put his index finger and thumb to his chin and said,

"Gee... I just don't know." He splayed his arms out as if ready to attack, but then he directed his gaze from under his hood over to me. I raised a brow before he said, "Kid, you should come with us it'll make things a lot easier for everyone." My eyes narrowed a little as I replied,

"By 'everyone' you mean the Organization, and another thing- the only way you're gonna get your hands on me is through a fight and I'm not taking any shit from nobody (no pun intended)... especially someone whose name is an acronym of 'Mansex'." Xigbar snorted at my insult to his leader, fighting back a laugh. He glanced back to Sora and said,

"Be a good boy now." he disappeared in a dark portal with Donald trying to chase after him, only to end up falling flat on his beak.

"Nuts! He got away!" Donald spoke.

"That was wierd. WHO gave him the same look?" Sora questioned.

"Y'know I think he was just tryin' to confuse ya." Goofy said.

"Yeah, you're right. Only one me!" Sora agreed.

"Not exactly.." I mumbled to myself. Sora took out his committee card and held it up to the sky, reading it aloud.

"The Hollow Bastion Restoration Committee Honorary Member-." before he could read out his name, the piece of plastic started glowing and levitated in the air. "What's this?" he asked as his Keyblade sparked the same light from the end. The Kingdom Key began charging up light as the Kingdom Crown appeared beneath Sora's feet and the surroundings turned into that of clouds at twilight. A beam of light shot out of the card and created a giant keyhole in the sky, Sora aimed the Keyblade at it and the same beam was sent towards it, causing it to glow with great intensity. During the whole process I stared in amazement at the sight and as I felt the aura of the magic.

I smiled when Sora finally caught on to what Yen Sid had told us,

"Sorry to run, Leon, but the other worlds are calling." Sora told him with a serious look, the scarred brunette nodded his head to show that he understood our mission. He then pondered for a moment,

"Organization XIII... They look tough. Be careful out there." We nodded before and said our goodbyes before heading back to the Gummi Ship.

* * *

As we walked back to the Gummi ship screams erupted from the Marketplace so we dashed as fast as we could to see what all the commotion was about, it was a Heartless attack. In the middle of the square were several Shadows and Soldiers that circled a particularly big Heartless; it looked like a Wyvern except its legs were longer and slimmer, it had two tails with a silver spike on each end, its skin was a burning red with a pale underbelly, there was a collar around its neck that looked similar to Axel's chakrams, spikes ran down its back while a clutch of them created a mane around the head, the wings were larger and decorated with orange flames, and the Heartless symbol was planted on its chest. I've never seen a Heartless like this before, but what was it doing here? It never appeared during Sora's second adventure.

"Looks like we've got more trouble." Sora said as he looked at me, I glanced at him as I started to transform again. My skin turned black and blue circuit lines appeared on my body, a cylinder of data surrounded me and in a brief flash of light I had transformed into a female demon. I was taller, my skin was pink, white armor covered my head, chest, waist and both of my arms. I had turned into Varnani. Sora, Donald and Goofy gawked at my new body I just shook my head and asked,

"Shall we get started then?" this snapped the trio out of their shock and nodded. Sora summoned his Keyblade, Goofy and Donald took out their weapons and as for me, my hands and arms split open slightly and a pair of blades unfolded out of the gaps, they were at least twice the length of my arms.

The four of us speeded towards the enemy and instigated the battle, me and Sora sliced and diced the lesser Heartless, Donald casted spells and Goofy defended with his shield.

Now that the Shadows and Soldiers were gone we could focus on the dragon, it swiped at us with its tail spikes but we jumped out of the way, I only just dodged it as it made a gash on my waist, blood seeped out of it and instant pain seared through the wound.

I growled and we started attacking the boss Heartless in every direction, Donald casted Thundara spells, Goofy attacked with his shield and me and Sora used our blades, managing to make our own cuts in its flesh. It started breathing streams of fire at us, scorching the ground black and some of the flames caught Donald's tail feathers.

The duck didn't notice at first but as soon as he caught the scent of burning him, his eyes bulged and he began running around like a headless chicken, screaming, begging for one of us to put out the flame. The dragon made several rumbling sounds that kinda seemed like laughter, I was taken aback by this but when the ember was extinguished we got our minds back on track and charged at the wyvern. Minutes had passed and we finally managed to wear the creature down.

To finish of the dragon-like Heartless I concentrated and casted a powerful Bufula spell. The Heartless was instantly frozen in ice, giving Sora, Donald and Goofy the chance to shatter it into pieces. I changed back into my original form and stared at the shaped blocks of ice on the ground and wondered,

_"What is a creature like this doing in Hollow Bastion? It's not even suppose to be here... And.. why did I feel like I knew it from somewhere?"_

"You were pretty good out there, Aimée." I heard Goofy praise, turning my head I saw that the three of them walked towards me with smiles on their faces.

"What was that monster you turned into? And how long have you had this ability?" Sora asked, my eyes darted to my friends and answered,

"To be precise, just now I was a demon, her name is Varnani. My shapeshifting power... to be honest with you I only just gained this ability since like yesterday." their expressions shifted so quickly probably because they thought I had this power for years but I didn't. I looked at the ground where the broken Heartless once stood and gazed at the chunks of frozen water as did Sora and the others. The fragments of the denizen of darkness were quickly covered with a veil of black mist, a white light burst from the center and a pink, crystal-like heart was released and the shadows disappeared.

But we were surprised that the heart didn't fade away like it normally should but instead it just floated in the air, then the strangest happened.

It descended towards us until it stopped in front of me, this was the first time I had ever seen this kind of heart so close, it radiated a bright pink light and it made our eyes glisten. I slowly grabbed it and to my surprise it was very much like a crystal, it was smooth and ice cold.

Then another strange thing occured, it started emitting heartbeats, it turned firey red and the coldness melted away as it became warmer.

It then shrunk until it was at least half of its actual size, two thin, red lines grew from the top of the heart and attached themselves around my neck, as soon as they did the heart stopped glowing. I brought it up near my face and gawked at it, the heart had turned into a burning red crystaline necklace pendant.

"Okay... What was that all about?" I asked aloud, I was sure that Sora, Donald and Goofy were thinking the same thing. I gave myself a possible reason,

_"Maybe it has something to do with you being the Keeper of Hearts."_

I shrugged it off, "Are we going or what?" I questioned with a smile, they nodded and we headed back to the Gummi ship. Our next destination, Land of Dragons.

**Jiminy's Journal:**

**Heartless:**

**Draco - This Heartless caused trouble for Sora and co just before they left Radiant Garden. Draco uses its fire breathing in combo with its two spiked tails, making it a lethal combination. After we defeated it, its heart didn't disappear but instead went to Aimé****e, we wonder why. For some reason it had glimmer of mischeviousness in its eyes.**

**

* * *

**

**So whose Heartless do you think it is? I'll leave that for you to decide, until next time. See you soon!**


	12. Land of Dragons

Chapter 12: Land of Dragons

**Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts or any of its character, nor shall I ever will but I do own the plot of this fanfic.**

**On a lighter note. Hey everybody, sorry it's been a long time since I updated but I've just been really busy. And guess what? I just became 16 not too long ago and I've got a brand new iPhone, now I won't get bored as hell during my breaks at school.**

**Enjoy :)**

* * *

After having left Hollow Bastion we started travelling towards the next world, the Land of Dragons. I looked out the window and awed at the auroras the swayed in the dark space around around us.

"This is amazing." I gasped.

"This your first time travelling to another world?" Donald asked. I didn't speak but I nodded my head as a response, too awe struck by the scenery. It soon changed as we entered a tunnel of light, we had just begun flying through a world gate.

A few seconds in, the Gummi Ship rumbled and shook from whatever was hitting it. I stood up but just as quickly lost my balance I landed on my belly, serves me right for not wearing my seatbelt. Did the ship even have seatbelts? I'll have to find out later but right now I wanted to see what was happening.

Getting on my hands and knees, I crawled over to the front and peaked my head over the control panel. We were being attacked by the Nobody ships, annoying little buggers how dare they shoot at us. Sora was pressing.. whichever buttons they were to fire back at them, rather badly I might add. But I couldn't blame him, he was a little rusty after being asleep for an entire year. The ship trembled again as we were being blasted at by not only the Knight Heads but by the UFOs, Shields, Ring Tanks and Bomb Bells as well. This is where I was really getting annoyed.

I pried Sora's hands off the steering handles or whatever call them when your driving a ship while saying,

"Let me have a go!" I began rapidly pressing two tiny red buttons at the top of them and beams of light shot out and began to blow up the Gummi Nobodies. I was pressing and steering to the best of my ability although I didn't have any skill in flying a ship, but I was pretty good at it, I managed to hit most of the enemies with only being hit a couple of times by the ticking time bombs. As the minutes went by I took out the rest of the foes, as well as a few asteroids, and a giant glowing keyhole appeared infront of us.

It was when we were safely flying through the tunnel of light that I released my hold on the steering wheel and plopped back into my seat with a sigh of relief. I glanced out the window for a moment before looking over to my friends, who were staring at me in shock. I raised a brow and asked,

"What?"

"How did'ya do that?" Goofy asked. I just shrugged then went back to looking out the window and keeping quiet until we arrived at our destination.

Green bamboo shoots surrounded us as we walked on the trail in the grove. It was so quiet here, I felt so serene listening to the birds twittering. I've never been to China before, maybe at some point I'll ask if we could go into the main town or village whichever it is. I looked over my shoulder and saw Goofy stop in mid step, must've spotted Mulan, I copied his midstop but hooked my hands into Sora's hood and Donald's jacket collar, stopping and minorly choking them.

We peeked out behind a boulder, to find a woman clad in green armor staring up at a cool, evil dragon shadow behind a campfire. Now obviously, this is Mulan and that is Mushu's shadow but Sora and Donald begged to differ. Goofy figured out that Mulan is a girl but was still unsure about the little firebreather.

"A Heartless?" Donald whispered.

"Let's get the jump on 'im." Sora suggested, they nodded but before they could jump out I nervously said to them,

"U-Umm... Gu-guys that's not a Heartless." they stopped in their tracks and turned back to me.

"Gawrsh, how can ya tell?" Goofy inquired. I facepalmed and explained,

"That shadow has red eyes, Heartless' are yellow and that doesn't have the emblem on it, a Heartless does." they studied the shadow a little more to get what I was talking about. Sora crossed his arms, thinking.

"It still looks dangerous, so let's go!" Without a moment's hesitation the boy and duck rushed out leaving only me Goofy behind. Goofy warned them to look before they leap but they just didn't listen. I jogged over with them to see Mulan shield the red dragon from us. The four of us came to a halt,

"Is that Mushu?" Goofy asked, said dragon peeped over her shoulder and letting his ego take over,

"That's right, I know you heard of me! I'm little, lethal, and legendary! Now y'all scram before I get my dragon dander up!"

"Hey, Mushu! We missed you!" Sora said.

"Well you better HOPE I miss YOU, or else you're- you're..." Mushu trailed off as he recognised the three heroes. "...Sora! Donald! Goofy!" the woman perked up a bit and questioned her guardian,

"You know them?"

"Man, we used to kick all kinds of bad guy butt together! Yeah, you know, I helped these guys out of a lot of tight spots. 'Cause I'm a mighty dragon! Right?" he bragged as he stepped towards the Keyblader, leaning on his leg. Mulan scanned us cautiously, I was too busy staring at one of my favourite Disney characters.

Sora budged back a bit letting the reptile do a backwards roley poley.

"Something like that. And...you are?" Mulan rose to her feet and introduced herself.

"I'm Mulan." Realising she wasn't supposed to use her real name, she corrected herself and spoke in her 'manly' voice. "Um, no, I-I mean.."

"Ping!" Mushu interjected, I couldn't hold back a snort of laughter. Donald looked at her confusedly,

"Mulan Ping?"

"Just... Ping. I am Ping, son of Fa Zhou."

"You know Mushu?" Sora questioned.

"Mushu is one of my family's guardians." 'Ping' explained as Mushu picked himself off the ground. Goofy spoke up,

"We didn't know we were borrowin' somebody as important as a family guardian."

"Yeah, that's right! And that puts you four up to your eyeballs in debt to Ping. Well, guess what, kiddies? It's payback time!" Mushu excaimed. "Ah, they don't mind. Ain't that right?" He glanced over to me, only just realising I was a new addition. He jumped down from his perch on Ping's shoulder and approached me curiously.

"Who are you, missy?" He questioned. I blinked twice before answering with a pleasant smile,

"My name's Aimée. It's nice to meet ya, Mushu." the dragon put a hand under his chin in a thinking manner, he hopped on to my shoulder and circled my head, analysing every feature of my face and even taking a few strands of hair from my ponytail in his small clawed hands. He soon let them drop back down to the rest and asked out of the blue,

"Are you Sora's sister?" I went wide-eyed and I blushed a little, I glanced over to Sora and he had the same reaction as me,

"No! W-We're friends!" we stuttered. _"What the hell? Why would he ask me that? I look nothing like Sora."_ I said to myself. Mushu put his hands up defensively and said,

"Okay, I was just askin'. So whaddya say, Sora?" Sora put his hand on his chin and thought about it,

"Hmm, sounds fair." he decided quickly after. Mushu had slithered back over to Mulan while I wasn't looking, damn he's fast!

"See, Ping here was just on his way to join the Imperial army. We gotta go find the other recruits over at the training camp."

"Would you join us? It'll be easier to fit in if I'm with guys, like you." 'Ping' requested. She looked at me and gave me an apologetic face, I smiled, telling her that it was alright.

"What do you mean, 'fit in'?" Sora asked curiously.

"Well, um, uh, don't-don't worry about that." Mushu interjected nervously. Goofy questioned 'Ping',

"You're pretendin' to be a boy, aren't ya?" Sora and Donald looked at Goofy then slowly turned to the warrior, silent all the while.

_"Three. Two. One."_ The two other boys jumped into the air in surprise, total shock plastered on their faces. I laughed quietly as they gawked at her.

"You're a... girl?" the teen asked. Mulan shyly looked away for a moment and asked,

"You didn't notice?" They both shook there heads and answered truthfully,

"Not me." After we were all done talking we decided to make our to the campsite. I was staring at Mulan and trying not to laugh at the way she was walking. She looked like she had to go to the bathroom or something. When we neared our destination, I poked her arm to get her attention, she looked at me questioningly.

"Mulan, if you want people to think you're a guy you gotta walk like one. Properly. Here, I'll show ya." I put her her arms down near to her sides so there was a little arm room left and spread her feet out a bit. I then told her to keep her shoulders back, head high and not to put one foot infront of the other like most women do. I demonstrated it to her by walking how I usually walked, it was a bit difficult to resist the urge to pop my hands into my pockets because they're just so cozy in there. The Chinese woman followed in suit, walking like a man pretty well.

When we made it to the camp, me and Sora lined behind some other recruits in black armour. A midget in red armour came along and rudely pushed my friend out of the way, in turn I stumbled back. My body tensed but I kept a straight face, as one of my pressure points had emerged, if there's a lot of things I hate, one of them's cutting in line for food. Nobody keeps me from waiting longer for **my** dinner.

As we told him to let us back into our spots, he turned around slugged Sora. Poor kid didn't even see it coming and he was knocked straight to the ground, I started to frown a little because another thing I hate is that people hit my friends for no reason. After helping Sora to his feet and making sure he was okay, I calmly walked up to the old punk and said nicely,

"Excuse me, but you owe my friend an apology. We were here first afterall." He looked me over and scowled at me,

"What're you doing here? This ain't no place for a little girl." that annoyed me a little more but my face didn't show it nor did my voice.

"Look, I don't want any trouble, I just want you to know that what you just did was wrong."

"'What you just did was wrong'." he copied in a high-pitched girly voice. I had a blank face and replied,

"That's not very nice I don't sound like that at all. You're making me sound like Amy Winehouse on helium. Please, just say 'sorry' to Sora and we can forget this ever happened." he glared at me and answered,

"Why would I do that? Apologies don't get you anywhere." I was starting to become more irritated by the minute, so I started using threats.

"You know someone's gonna get hurt if they don't do as they're told." I warned.

"What're you gonna do? Girls can't fight, they should stay in the kitchen and look pretty."

"You're going the right way for another black eye, mate." I cautioned again as I clenched my fists tightly.

"I'd like to see you try, pipsqueak."

My eyes twitched in anger and I walked away from him, pinching the bridge of my nose. When I was a considerable distance away from the small crowd, an idea popped into my head.

_"If I can't persuade him with words, perhaps I can by appearance."_ I turned and sprinted towards the others, the heart necklace began to glow red and very hot against my skin, even through my clothes, but I didn't take note of it.

I leapt high into the air and orange flames burst out of the heart and engulfed my body. Every soldier who wittnessed this gawked as my fiery form elongated, grew and morphed into the likeness of a Chinese Long. Eventhough the flames would always burn anyone who touched them, they didn't hurt me but rather I just felt the warmth coming from them and it seemed almost comforting. As my front feet landed on the ground, the flames extinguished and snaked back along my body revealing my brand new physique.

I was now a Chinese Long. I was covered from head to tail in blue scales, one whisker on each side of my snout was a sky blue colour, my eyes were still the same, fine purple hair with a single red streak ran down from my head all the way down to my tail, five toes on each foot, massive talons were silver whereas my branched horns were golden. For my size now, I'd say I was about 14 feet tall and around 30 or so feet long. My necklace that caused the fire still retained its position around my neck.

Everybody in the entire camp stared up at me in shock and awe, couldn't believe what just happened to me. I could see Mushu peeking out of Mulan's armour but still kept out of the way so no one could see him. When I saw... You know I forgot that red armour clad jerk's name but I was smiling smugly at him, I walked a little closer and looked down on him.

"Who's the pipsqueak now, huh?" He backed up a little when I flashed my dragon teeth. Our entire scuffle was interrupted by a new male voice speaking up,

"Soldiers! Get back in line!" We looked over to see Captain Shang glaring over at us, we didn't need to be told twice so we instantly got into single file. Shang walked past us, only faultering when he spotted me in the line, after that he regained his composure and made his way back to the front.

Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a black mass surface along with a pair of glowing yellow eyes. I snapped my head to where I spotted the black ceature and more began to pop up. I hissed at them, alerting my friends to our unwanted company. Sora, Donald, Goofy and Ping brandished their weapons, ready for the fight, while the other recruits skidaddled out of here.

"Cowards!" I yelled.

"Ping, I hope you're ready." Sora said. We rushed into battle, at first all the Shadows sunk back into the ground and moved beneath us, scattering, but when they rose again when attacked. Donald casted Thundaga to shock them, Sora and Ping stabbed and sliced them with their blades, Goofy blocked and bashed them his shield and I swiped at them with my claws.

When the weaklings were gone, new Heartless exploded out of the tents. The Nightwalkers. These guys were a real pain in the ass, they used their spinning moves to knock us far back, I barely managed to recover my composure when I got socked in the face. My body was trembling with anger, a draconic growl escaped my throat and I locked on to my targets. I sucked in a huge breath of air and I felt an almost burning sensation in my lungs, a steam of orange and red fire escaped from my mouth and struck the remaining Heartless, setting them ablaze. The heat was intense, even my friends could feel it from a short distance away. As soon as the flames were gone, all that remained of the Nightwalkers were the charred patches on the ground next to the single line of burnt grass with small flames still flickering ending at the camp wall.

As I breathed out, puffs of black smoke merged with the air. I took in a deep breath, exhaled and said cheerfully,

"Ah, now that was a good way to blow off some steam." I turned to the other four and asked, "Everybody alright?" They stared up at me in slight shock but nodded, confirming that they were fine.

Mushu peered out from Ping's armour,

"That was some fine firebreathin' there, Aimée." he complimented. I smiled widely at him.

_"I just got complimented by a dragon, one of my many favourites at that! I wonder if Axel would be impressed.."_ I thought. After the battle was over, the captain and two other soldiers walked over to us. Two lines of glowing embers split from a single one on my abdomen, they ran across my body going in each other's opposite directions. As they spread, my form turned as black as coal and ashes scattered in the wind, my dragon form dissipating with it until my true self remained.

"You four. What are your names?" Shang asked. Me and my favourite trio gave him our names, not even acknowledging the other member of our team. "You're welcome in my troop. You're battle skills are encouraging."

"I am the son of Fa Zhou-" Ping tried to introduce 'himself' but was interrupted by Shang.

"You should return home."

"B-but... That would dishonor my family!" Ping protested.

"You'd rather dishonor my troops?" the captain questioned.

"Don't make me-!" Mushu began but was silenced by Ping, we all looked to the duo, Shang eyed Ping suspiciously,

"If Ping trains hard and does his best he'll get stronger in no time." Sora tried to persaude. Captain Shang contemplated this. "Just give us an assignment. We'll show you how well we can work together." Me and the other boys nodded in agreement. He thought about a little more before telling us what our objective was: scout the mountains in advance for the other troops.

Before we departed for our missions, we made sure we stocked up on potions, ethers and elixirs just to be safe. I brought my fingers up to my cheek and pressed it lightly, I quickly retracted my hand at the sudden stinging pain and it really hurt. It caused tears to form in my eyes. Man, those stronger Heartless pack a punch. I felt a hand place itself on my shoulder, I turned to find Sora look at me with concern.

"You okay? Are you hurt?" he asked. I blinked the tears away and answered,

"Yeah, I'm fine. Don't worry about me." After making sure I was okay and had packed all necessary items we headed over to our commander for mission details.

* * *

**Hope you enjoyed this chappie, the next one shouldn't take too long to finish and I'm trying to make up for lost time so I'll attempt at putting up as many chapters as possible in the next few days.**

**A shout out to JakDaxPeaceMaker, I've read your message and I'll think about using your song request in my story. I might tell you my decision or surprise you, but until then keep on reading and writing. Aqua sends all reviewers sea monster hugs and kisses. :)**


	13. The Melodious Nocturne

Chapter 13: The Melodious Nocturne

**I do not own Kingdom Hearts or its characters they belong to Square Enix, I only own the plot. If anyone tries to steal any of my stories they shall feel mine and Aqua's combined wrath... But we prefer to handle these kind of things calmly. So please, please, please don't steal my work I worked hard on these.**

**Today, 29th May, is the anniversary of when I first joined fanfiction and Aqua has given me a bag of Haribo's as a pressie. OM NOM NOM NOM NOM! :)**

* * *

Weapons clashing against each other resonated through the air. After two missions we were exhausted, well actually I was exhausted, and I didn't have much strength left to keep fighting. My legs felt like the bones had been replaced with jelly, I slumped to my knees when they gave out. I could feel my lungs burning as I panted, my mind was telling me to get back up but my body had made its decision and kept me down so I could rest, leaving me vulnerable.

An Assault Rider spotted me in my helpless state and moved its killing intentions from Sora to me. It strode over to me with a hardened gaze, it's hooves clopping on the ground. I stared up at it as it approached me, from my position the Heartless towered over me. I attempted to get back up and make a break for it but my legs were still asleep and I landed on my rear.

_"This isn't good. This isn't good."_ I gulped as I scurried backwards, desperately trying to increase the distance between the creature and I. Now normally, anyone would panic at this moment but I stayed calm and my breathing was normal. Cold water swallowed my hands during my movements, I must be in the river now. The Assault Rider's steps turned into splashes with each advancement it took, it's glowing yellow eyes were locked firmly on to mine, never lifting for even a second. Sora, Donald, Goofy and Ping were still battling the Soldiers and Nightwalkers so they hadn't noticed my predicament.

_"Those lot need to be more aware of what else is going on here."_ I growled mentally.

When I pushed myself away, one of my hands slipped on a pebble and I landed on my side. That was when I was in real trouble now. By the time I pushed myself up and recovered from the shock of cool wind freezing the soaked side of my face, the Heartless had closed the gap between us. It reared its lance back and stood on its hind legs preparing to strike. As it thrusted its weapon forward I closed my eyes and waited for the strike to finish me, but it never came.

I opened my eyes a smidge and saw a dark figure standing in front of me, blocking the Heartless's attack. I opened them more and realised that the person defending me was Sora. He pushed away the lance with his Kingdom Key and lopped off the dark being's head. I took two steps back before slumping in a cloud of black smoke.

"You okay?" Sora asked. I stared up at him and nodded, he offered his hand to help me up which I gladly took. I staggered a little but I managed to stay up despite my legs still trembling terribly. After the others checked that I was okay, much to my annoyance, we headed back to the encampment to report to Shang.

* * *

When we passed the entrance walls I received a few strange looks from the other recruits, they looked at me in slight fear yet they bowed as I passed them like I was royalty or something. Even Yao, yes I finally remembered his name, bowed but he kept a large distance away from me. I had gotten over my small victory from our first encounter and now with everyone in the camp staring at me I was beginning to feel a little uncomfortable.

After we reported, Shang praised us on a job well done. And by us, I mean me, Sora, Donald and Goofy, he was still unconvinced about Ping's abilities as a warrior. He had given the Chinese (wo)man another chance to prove himself worthy of being a part of the Imperial army.

We carried on with our mission and trailed up the mountains ahead of the rest of the troops. As we trekked up the rocky trail I heard a bird's cry from above. Gazing upwards, I saw the silhouette of a falcon flying overhead towards the snow covered rock formation.

_"Hayabusa.. Shan Yu must be further up. Though now that I think about it, why did Walt Disney give the falcon a Japanese name when the movie's set in China? Hm, I guess it's just one of those things."_ I pondered. Since I knew that we were coming up to our first blockade, I had to turn into something that was strong enough to move those boulders out of the way. There were so many choices but I ended up picking a Pachycephalosaurus, or to those who watch LBT, a Domehead. I morphed into my chosen form as I walked to keep up with my friends despite the painful process of it all.

My scales were light gray all over and they merged with a single line of purple going down my back to my tail, my eyes became bigger yet remained the same blue colour, both arms became shorter and sported only four stubby fingers, more muscular legs that were supported by three clawed toes and my skull increased in thickness.

That's when my idea went wrong and my mind went blank.

* * *

_(Aimée's POV, Domehead mind)_

I shook my head to free myself of this dazed state I was in. My eyes darted around frantically, I was confused and questions raced through my head.

_"Where am I? Who am I? What am I doing here?"_ Something moving caught my eye so I looked to what I saw. Four strange looking creatures that walked on two legs like me but they had some weird stuff covering rest of their bodies, perhaps that was their body armour. As they turned around a corner curiosity took over and I followed them, hoping to see where they were going or what they were going to do.

I took silent steps towards them but kept fairly away from those four incase they would spot me. I kept glancing at the surroundings every so often, taking in the tall white peaks and smelling the sweet fresh air. I felt content, relaxed out here, and it had a beautiful view.

My musings were interrupted when I heard an unfamiliar sound, it sounded like.. like.. scraping claws against stone only it was shorter and quicker and more like a screech. It sent shivers down my spine, I sped over to where the sounds were coming from and found the four straight-walkers fighting with these strange animals. They varied in size, some were bigger and others were smaller than the straight-walkers. I wondered what had happened to start this fight.

_"Maybe the straight-walkers invaded their territory. I better not get involved, I don't want to fight anything."_ When turned to walk away I saw two of the creatures rise out of the ground. As they stalked towards me I retreated but I was heading straight for the rest of the pack or herd. I turned on my heel and sprinted, I didn't care about the danger I was getting myself into but I just wanted to escape to safety. The rock wall that blocked any further entry was no more when I charged right into it, the boulders flew in all directions, clacking and bouncing on the ground as dust formed in the air.

I just kept on running, not caring in the slightest about what lay ahead. I had to get away!

_"Gotta get away! Gotta get away!"_ I repeated to myself. After ramming through a few more barracades, I finally stopped on a bit of higher ground and scanned the area while regaining my breath.

_"No sign of 'em. Must've given 'em the slip."_ I thought. Then I remembered those four mysterious animals that fought them and started think about whether or not they were still around, I lowered my head in slight guilt and shame. Maybe they survived, they seemed capable of handling the fight themselves.. But what if they were dead? If they died, then it'd be my fault. I should've stayed and helped them but I had to be scaredy egg and run away.

_"You're a coward. Nothing but a COWARD!"_ My mind screamed. Tears filled my eyes and threatened to fall soon, a low sad rumble escaped from my throat as my heart clenched at the worst possible thought.

"Aimée!" A voice called, I didn't take note of it at first but after it was repeated a second time I lifted my head and carefully stepped to the edge. My blue orbs widened with happiness, walking up the path it took were the straight-walkers, alive and well. As much as I wanted to go down and smother them with affection, I stayed on my safe perch and watched them from afar.

"Where do ya think she could be?" The tall one asked. Who could they be talking about? Someone's missing from their herd, a girl. I wanted to help but I still feared them because I didn't know if they were a threat to me or not.

"She couldn't have gone far. Don't worry Sora, we'll find her." the short white one assurred.

"I thought she'd be wobbling like a dizzy fool- you know with how she busted through them boulders so easily." a small skinny lizard said. Busted through the- is the friend they're looking for me? I backed up at the idea,

**"I can't be the one they're looking for, I look nothing like 'em!"** I told myself as I stepped over to the edge. I didn't even notice the two-legged animals climb up on to my patch of rock, staring at me curiously. One of the males walked closer and yelled,

"Hey there!" I turned around so quickly that I tripped up on my own two feet and fell backwards, unfortunately I was right near the edge of the rock formation. My heart skipped a beat as I cried out in shock, I instantly snapped my eyes shut when I turned upside down and awaited for the impact to come. But it never came.

I hesitantly opened my eyes and my breath hitched as I realized how high up I was. Really, really high. I felt something gripping my tail tightly so I looked up to see that the youngest straight-walker was holding on to my tail, the white fuzzie midget holding on to his ankles and the tall dark one holding on to that one's ankles. So they really are trying to help me. A loose pebble escaped from the side of the mountain and plummetted down to the earth below.

_"O-kaay, I wanna get up. NOW!"_ I started thrashing around and screaming to get back on to flat ground, accidentally nicking the boy's face with my claws with one foot and tugging the brown soft stuff on his head. They got the message and pulled each other back up, when we were half way up someone slipped and we dropped back down a bit.

I twitched in fear, my eyes rolled to the back of my head as I sank into unconsciousness. Before I completely blacked out, I heard them yelling that word again,

"Aimée!"

* * *

_(Aimée's POV)_

I woke with a start upon feeling somebody roughly shaking my shoulder. I looked around and found that it was Yao who woke me up.

"Well, look who finally woke up." he said.

"Dude, you don't even know how long I've been out. Now back off before I break your face." I growled. He frowned but when I gave a gluttural growl he did as I ordered and backed off. I absolutely hated it when people forcibly awakened me before my time, especially those who had an ugly face, and I got extremely grumpy when I wake up.

"Aimée you're up!" a male voice called, I gazed up towards the source and found Sora, Donald, Goofy and Ping sauntering over to me. I used the mountain as support to haul myself up and sauntered over to my companions. I yawned and scratched the back of my head as I woke from the vestiges of my slumber. "Are you okay now?" Sora asked.

I raised an eyebrow in confusion and questioned,

"What're you talking about?"

"You don't remember?" Donald perturbed. I just shook my head in response.

"You turned into a dinosaur and ran away. Like you didn't know us." Goofy explained. Both of my brows rose in surprise and only then did I realize what must've happened. I facepalmed and muttered,

"Not again.." I remembered the enigmatic voice's warning from a day or so earlier, I lost myself to my forms instincts. Now I knew I had to be more careful about the things I morph into, I didn't want to risk putting myself or my friends in danger.. unless it can't be helped. I sighed and said tiredly, "C'mon, let's just get to the village."

They nodded, not even wondering how I knew that the mountain village was just a few meters away. When we arrived, my blue eyes instantly brightened at the sight of all the snow. Snow was my candy, and any area that was covered in it was my candystore.

While Sora and co were planning on how to make Mulan worthy of being accepted in the army, I was wandering around aimlessly too absorbed in the pure whiteness of the snow. I always loved the snow, in fact the only occasions I ever went outside to play was when it was snowing or Halloween.

A light bulb popped over my head as a mischevious smile spread across my face. I scooped up a chunk of the cold stuff from the ground and scrunched it into a ball, I took aim and threw it as hard as I could. It hit my target. Sora scanned frantically for who it was who hit him with the snowball until he saw me laughing at him. Rapid crunching of snow followed soon after, I glanced up to find the teenage brunette rushing after me. My smile quickly dropped and I ran from my friend.

_"I'm in trouble!"_ I ran as fast as I could but it was futile as Sora was faster than me with all the battles and training he's had. He grabbed me by the back of my hood and shoved a handful of snow in my face. I spat out what went in my mouth and we laughed it off.

Sora and others headed out to find Shan-Yu in the cave near the village. I said I'd stay behind and keep a look out, and it sucked. Nothing happened for what seemed like ages, I was just about to go find Sora when I heard an explosion not far from where I was patrolling. I skidded around a corner to find the villain of this world grinning with malice and his sword held high in his grasp. Three of the buildings had caught on fire and were demolished by him and his forces. Now's my chance!

I ran over to fight Shan-Yu but my path was quickly blocked by a line of Rapid Thrusters. When I craned my neck up my face drained of colour at the sight of the Hun's enormous stature, he noticed this and glared down at me evilly. I made a 'yipe', turned into a sparrow and just flew away as fast as I could.

A swift gust rushed past me and small brown feathers flew past my face. Those were my feathers! Hayabusa was on the hunt and I was on his menu. The falcon targetted me like any hungry raptor and dived, intent on catching and possibly eating me. I screeched and flapped my wings rapidly in desperation to elude the predator.

I narrowly escaped its deadly talons many times as I swerved, twisted and loop-de-looped in the air. I grew tired and I had to do something to get rid of this falcon. That's when I spotted the windows of one of the remaining houses, the holes were small enough for me to fly through but not Hayabusa here. I folded my wings into my sides and dove into the tiny gap, the falcon still followed but it got its head stuck and it began to shriek for help.

_"Ha ha, dumb bird!"_ But soon Hayabusa was removed from its situation just as Shan-Yu lit some dragon rockets inside the house. My eyes widened as the fuse burned away, I hopped up to the same gap and took off as fast as I could. I barely missed the explosion, the light blinded me and the smoke choked me. I held my breath to prevent much of the black smoke from filling my lungs as I fell out of the sky and landed in the snow.

Loud footsteps crunched the snow, drawing ever so closer. I closed my eyes and played dead but also trying to get rid of my temporary blindness. I shivered out of fear and the cold combined, and I squeezed my eyelids tight so I wouldn't blow my deception. When I heard the man walk away, I opened my eyes slowly and raised my head cautiously. After a few seconds my eyesight had returned and I gazed at the devastated village, all that remained was the burnt debris and support beams and the smell of thock smoke lingered.

I spotted four new figures walking in through the village walls, my party. I shook the snowflakes off of my feathers and flew over to four of my many favourite heroes while they helped Shang to his feet.

"Sora! Donald! Goofy! Ping!" I shouted. They turned their heads to me as I perched myself on the brunette's shoulder. They looked at me curiously before Donald inquired,

"What happened here?"

"I'll give ya one guess." I answered, they immediately came to the same conclusion,

"Shan-Yu!" they exclaimed in unison. I nodded silently and averted my gaze to the ground,

"It's my fault. I could've stopped him but I was too afraid to do anything 'cause of that big behemoth and his no good pet!" I berrated.

"It's Shan-Yu and the Heartless' fault. Not ours!" Goofy said. It did cheer me up a little bit but not a lot. After getting over the problem we headed towards our next destination. The mountain summit.

(Insert massive fight with Shan-Yu in the mountains and the city, defending the Imperial doors and rescuing the Emperor of China)

"I've heard a great deal about you, Fa Mulan. You stole your father's armor, ran away from home, impersonated an Imperial soldier. You decieved your commanding officer, shamed the entire Chinese army, and dishonored your family name."

_"Would you stop listing all the negatives already? There are people who have done a lot more horrible things than what Mulan's done ya'know."_

"You're a young woman. And in the end... You have saved us all." The Emperor finished. Mulan rose in surprise and we all looked behind us to see all the inhabitants of the city cheering for her. We jumped for joy and the Captain handed Mulan Shan-Yu's sword as a trophy. "Take this, so the world will know what it is you have done for China."

"Sora. Donald. Goofy. Aimée. Thank you." Shang thanked.

"'Thank you'? Is that all there is to say, Captain? If you wish to win the heart of Fa Mulan, China's bravest woman, you'll have to be a bit more eloquent than that!" I laughed inwardly, you gotta love the Emperor, he's one of the funny characters of the film. Mushu had blurted out the fact that he was not actually a family guardian which caused Sora to start chasing him around.

The sword in Mulan's hands glowed and floated into the air. I called out to Sora, grabbing his attention and alerting him of the glowing weapon. Knowing what to do, he summoned his Keyblade and carried out the locking of the world. We said our goodbyes for now, with me and Sora telling the two lovebirds to play nice before we left the palace grounds. After we exited the city, Sora received a keychain that resembled the morale orbs. He obtained the Hidden Dragon Keyblade.

I suggested to Sora that we should stay here for the night before moving on to the next world. He was reluctant at first because he wanted to hurry up with finding his missing friend but he eventually agreed. Everyone went back to sleep in the encampment but I went to go sleep in the bamboo grove, they were confused as to why I wouldn't want to stay near them but I told them that I'd be fine.

I was fine with being alone, I've pretty much been a loner for a long time. I used to play outside all the time but when I was about ten I staying inside my house a lot and I barely talked to anyone near the end of primary school. I rested my head on a rock, a rather comfortable rock, and gazed up at the night sky, watching the stars twinkle.

_"Hard to believe I'm in a game's universe. Though I'm starting wonder, if these worlds are real then what other worlds exist? What unknown threats are out there? If all these stars represent a different world I wanna see them all."_ I thought.

Just as I turned away I heard a warping sound and I knew what that meant, a corridor of darkness had opened up. Turning around I saw a cloaked figure step out of it, the light steps of his boots tapping on the ground. He pulled down his hood to reveal dirty blonde hair that was styled like a mullet and green eyes, he looked only two or so years older than me.

A grin spread across my face and I laughed silently with excitement at who had just arrived, he looked around until spotted me. He smiled and said in a cheerful way as he waved at me,

"Hi!" I waved and greeted him back,

"Hi!" He scratched the back of his head as though he was trying to remember something. The Nobody dug into his pockets, pulled out a white cue card and read it aloud.

"Let's see, 'Capture the Keeper of Hearts. If she refuses to come peacefully, bring her back by force.'" My eyes narrowed at task he had been given by his superiors but they held a twinkle of amusement. He turned around and rubbed his head, I listened carefully as he muttered, "Right. Did they pick the wrong guy for this one..." the blonde turned to face me, "Would you happen to know the Keeper of Hearts?" he asked, my smile disappeared slightly and I pointed to myself, making him grimace slightly.

"Well.. would you come with me?" I stared at him blankly and was about to answer when I heard another portal open up. This time it was a familiar redhead who walked out of it.

"Hey, Axel." I greeted. He gave a nod of acknowledgement but when he spotted Demyx he sent an almost cold glare at him, the water elemental sweatdropped, chuckled nervously and gave him a small friendly wave. I switched glances between the two of them, the tension was so thick you could cut with a knife.

"What are you doing here, Demyx?" Axel questioned. I didn't realise it at first but Axel was now standing right next to me, almost in a protective manner. The blonde backed up a little and raised his hands in defensive gesture,

"I-I'm just carrying out my mission."

"Which is?" the pyro asked. The musician gulped and hesitated with his answer,

"Umm.. to.. bring back the Keeper of Hearts?" the pyromaniac made towards the cowardly Nobody causing him to flinch but before he could get within arm's length, I grabbed the end of his cloak.

"Axel, don't." I ordered, he looked back at me blankly while Demyx, on the other hand, looked rather thankful and sighed in relief. "He hasn't done anything to me so leave him alone."

I patted the spot on the ground next to me, motioning for Axel to sit beside me. He did after a moment of consideration and took a place by my side. Demyx cautiously yet hurriedly jogged sneaked over to my other side and sat down a few feet away from me and his fellow Nobody.

"Why did you stop me?" the pyro whispered. I looked up at him tiredly and replied,

"Like I said, he didn't do anything to me. Besides, I think he's harmless."

"He's part of the Organization, he could easily kill you."

"So could you, but you will not as you are now one of my friends and if you do I'm coming back to haunt your ass!" I warned, Axel let out a small chuckle at my threat and patted me on the head. We all sat there in silence, I was thinking on what I could do to save the Nobodies from descending into oblivion.

I had an idea.

"Demyx, I'm gonna make you a deal. If you become my spy and tell me what the Organization's next moves are, I promise to restore your heart." Upon hearing this, the Nobody's eyes sparkled with hope and joy. "I also have a request. Can you teach me how to play different instruments? I mean you are a musician after all and if you do, I'll teach you a lot of songs I know. So whaddya say?" The Melodious Nocturne instantly grabbed my hand and shook it enthusiastically while nodding his head. I smiled, I was getting nearer to restoring my favourite characters' hearts and I've got a new friend to talk to.

Sleep was tugging at me, calling me into its grasp. I couldn't keep resisting for long because my metabolism wouldn't allow it and followed it like a strict rule. I leaned against Axel's shoulder using it as a pillow as I began to drift off, the redhead and hydromancer raised their brows in surprise.

Before I completely conked out, I spoke quietly,

"Axel?"

"Hm?"

"Roxas says 'Hi'." As I nodded off I could feel his body heat washing over me, making me fall asleep quicker and I could hear a powerful pounding. It couldn't have been Axel since he doesn't have a heart, it can't be Demyx either or mine. But what I didn't know was that when I was near Roxas's best friend, the crystal heart hanging from my neck flashed red in the rhythm of a heartbeat.

* * *

**How'd you like the chapter? All the year 11's finished school on Thursday, so I have now left high school and I'm off to college. All the year 7s, 8s and 9s still there now have to stay in school till they're 18. Chumps! I'm glad I was born in the year I was :) Anyway, enjoy the story and don't forget to review.**


	14. Beast's Castle

Chapter 14: Beast's Castle

**Disclaimer: I do not in any way shape or form own Kingdom Hearts or it's characters. I only own this plot.**

**Just so you all know, this story was inspired by Knyghtstar's fanfiction, 'Balanced: Darkness and Light'.**

**Sorry for the long wait (3 months wow!) I've been half lazy and half busy writing future fanfics I know you're not supposed to do that but I'm being creative and it's been a bit hectic at college, which I have just started on last Monday. And I've recently got the Adobe CS5 Master Collection so hopefully I can improve my drawings on DeviantArt, if you wanna look at my pics the address is in my profile :) Anyways here's the new chappie. Enjoy!**

**Warning: Colourful language from me and the other parts of my personality.**

**" " - Normal bold font whenever I'm in an animal form and the others can't understand me and when I'm talking to another animal.**

_**" "**__ - __**Bold italics are the other parts of me speaking.**_

* * *

_(Dream Sequence)_

_For the second time I found myself standing alone in the darkness. Shivers travelled from my upper back south to the base of my spine, that cold empty feeling the inky blackness gave off like a chilly winter wind._

_**"Hello? Roxas? Naminé?" **__I called. Echoes sounding through the dark. Nothing, it was so quiet that you could hear a pin drop or the scurrying of a mouse. __**"If.. If you're here give me sign. Tug my sleeve, kick my shin, anything!" **__Still no answer, I walked forward a bit, the echoes of my footsteps travelling into the distance. Then I trotted off in another direction for a short while and turned my head from one side to the other hoping I'd be able to see the light again. I frowned in defeat and sighed hopelessly, I'm all alone in the darkness. Not that I don't like being alone. I felt something or someone tug on my sleeve, I turned around to see who it was but there was no one there._

"Okay, I'm starting to feel like I'm in 30 Days of Night." _I felt a tug again but it was on my hood, I spun around quickly to look for the culprit but again there was nobody. I swear I could hear an almost snicker-like rumble as I tried to find who was pulling at my cloak. Something's toying with me. I sauntered off in a random direction with my hands behind my head, they were very faint but I heard heavy footsteps following me. As quick as I could, I spun to face the being that was trailing me._

_I sucked in my breath when I saw a pair of big, yellow, unblinking eyes floating in front of me. The eyes of a Heartless. I stopped breathing when the eyes raised themselves up higher, whatever they were attached to it was like four times my size. I shook my head to break out of my stare with it and took up a boxing stance, my fists close to my face to defend myself._

_"__**C'mon you big bastard, I-I ain't afraid of you!" **__I challenged. Actually I was, I can be initimidated by anything that's bigger than me, as seen when I ran away from Shan Yu but right now I tried to put on a brave face. The unseen head turned on to its side a bit just staring at me with its unblinking glowing eyes, it snorted in what almost seemed like amusement. I didn't know what to think but I was questioning myself on why this Heartless wasn't attacking me. My thinking made me unconsciously lower my guard and the denizen of darkness noticed this. Something hard and sharp hooked around the back of one of my feet and yanked causing me to wobble and fall flat on my bum. The next thing I knew I was lifted off the ground by the front of my Nobody symbol t-shirt. I dangled helplessly and stayed very still so it wouldn't drop me or rip my new clothes, I didn't want that to happen I just got these like a day ago for crying out loud._

"Wait a minute.. Duh! I'm such an idiot, I can just use my powers to escape from the Heartless. Why didn't I think of this sooner?" _I thought of an animal in my head, a grizzly bear, and concentrated on it. Nothing happened so I concentrated harder. And still nothing, no bodily pain or even a tingle. I started to panic a tiny bit. Something's wrong, my powers aren't working but why?_

_STOMP! STOMP! STOMP! Went the Heartless's feet as it began moving forward in this endless abyss. I sighed in frustration and crossed my arms._

"Great. My powers don't work and I'm being carried away to gods know where by a giant Heartless. This is not what I bargained for when I made my wish damnit! Well, it is what I wished for so I guess I'll just have to deal with it." _My rants continued bouncing off the walls in my head, I was so busy being lost in my thoughts that I didn't notice the beast stopping. That is until it shook me like a ragdoll, one could actually hear rattling coming from my head or maybe it was just my little trinkets jingling.. we'll go with the latter._

_It soon stopped and lowered me to the black ground, my head spun a little from the shake but it went away and I glanced up at the creature in confusion. Yellow eyes came closer to me then something poked my stomach roughly making me stagger back until I landed against something hard. Turning around quickly, I gazed up and down a tall white door with five white diamond shaped pieces splayed around the top of the door._

"A door. Could this lead me to Roxas and Naminé?" "**Nooo. It's gonna lead to the plain of happy rainbows where unicorns get high off of pixie dust!**" "**You never know, could do.**" "I was only wonderin'. How're you two here, I thought I locked you away?" "**Ha! You think you can get rid of all the voices in your head? Well that only worked for a few years but we're back.**" "Fantastic. Now will you two just shut up so I can find Roxas and Naminé?" _I metally ordered my other voices, they qiuetened down soon after. Okay let me explain, back in my world I am a loner so I created voices and many other horrible little monsters in my head so I could talk to someone. Unfortunately, one of them started gifting my mind with homocidal images of some of the horrible people in my school so long story short, I shut them off for a while and now they're back. Hoo-flippin'-ray!_

_Before I opened the door I turned around, expecting the Heartless to still be behind me, yet it wasn't. It was gone. I was thankful that it wasn't hear now but I couldn't help but feel the tiniest bit sad, did the Heartless intentionally bring me here because I didn't know where to go. Heh. Maybe it saw me as a lost little child and wanted to help, a Heartless helping me? I'd like to see the day. Without casting a second glance I grabbed the handle, pulled down and opened the door a bit._

_Relief washed over me when I saw the same white room behind the entrance as well as my two Nobody friends. Naminé was busy drawing a new picture while Roxas was staring at the ones she's already drawn on the walls. They didn't notice me yet so I poked my head through the gap with a small smile plastered on my face._

_**"Hell-oooo~" **__I greeted softly. It was enough to grab their attention and looked over in my direction, pleasant smiles appeared and I could feel welcoming auras eminating from them._

_**"About time you showed up." **__Roxas said in false irritation. I chuckled and asked,_

_**"Did I keep you waiting?"**_

_**"Not for long, come in."**__ Just as I was about to take a step into the room, I was roughly shoved in by something else. I did a total faceplant and the two blondes stared at me bemused. I lay on the cold floor sprawled out and confused as hell. What the hell just happened!_

_**"What the hell just happened!" **__I demanded. I scrambled off the ground and glared out into the everlasting darkness, darting my sight to all possible areas I could scan in hopes of finding the culprit. I saw nothing. Naminé told me to forget about, which I did almost immediately, and I took my seat in the single chair facing the two others where Roxas and Naminé sat._

_Although I was over the little push fiasco I couldn't help but ponder on this: Who was it that pushed me? It wasn't like the Heartless's snout, far from that. Whoever pushed me was human. So who else could possibly be here in my dream- telepathic talk or.. whatever? Looks like another mystery I'm gonna have to solve. In the meanwhile, I took an interest in anything that caught my eye, particularly one of Nami's new drawings._

_I leaned over to get a better look, the picture depicted the same brown haired girl dressed in black but this time she was holding out a hand with a glowing red heart in front of it and what looks like a big, red dragon flying out of it. I couldn't help but notice that the girl looked a bit like me. I'll ask her._

_**"So how's the journey going?"**__ the golden blonde asked. Okay, I'll ask after talking to my friends. I replied flatly and stared emptily,_

_**"Okay."**_

_**"Where are you now?"**_

_**"Land of Dragons."**_

_**"We are you heading next?"**_

_**"Don't know."**__ Roxas fidgetted a little under my unblinking stare._

_**"Not much of a talker, are you?"**_

_**"Prefer to be quiet."**__ I explained. I finally blinked when I remembered what to tell the Nobody._

_**"I told Axel you said 'Hi', Roxas."**__ I said. Roxas's eyes lit up a little and gave a small smile,_

_**"What did he say?"**__ he asked. I moved my eyes to the top corner of my eyesight in a thinking manner and took a deep breath. Roxas and Naminé leaned forward, awaiting my answer._

_**"I dunno. I fell asleep right after I told him."**__ I said truthfully. Both of them sweatdropped while Roxas added in a head desk to go with it. A snort escpaed me because of their reactions, I couldn't help it it was funny. It's fun to mess with people's minds sometimes. As Roxas lifted his head off the table, showing a red patch in the middle of his forehead, I questioned,_

_**"So, what do you two need to talk to me about?"**_

_**"Can't friends just have a normal conversation?"**__ There was a moment of silence as I stared blankly at him._

_**"You should know by now that I'm in no way normal. Now tell me what ya need to tell me."**_

"I bet any money that it's gonna be about Demyx." **"I'll add fifty quid to that, mate." "Feeling a little calmer now?" "Shut the fuck up, you fucking pansy."** "Here we go again."

_**"So you've met Demyx now, huh?"**_

_A bell rang three times in the inside of my mind signalling to the other sides of me that I was right. Angry me (the one who swears and likes to be sarcastic) was doing a victory dance while cussing the imaginary house out. I mentally shook my head at her antics and concentrated on what the teen had asked me. I just my nodded head for my answer, his face turned serious while Naminé was busy concentrating on a new drawing. __**"What was his mission?"**__ he asked. I scratched the back of my neck, unsure of how to tell him. Meh, I'll just tell him bluntly._

_**"He was supposed to capture me."**__ After I said this, a glimmer of anger shone in his eyes, which is more or less okay seeing as he shouldn't have any emotions yet out of everyone in the Organization he is the most emotional. Heh, how... What's the word? Ironic? Maybe._

_**"You better be careful, when Xemnas sends one of 'em on a mission, he expects it to be done. Don't be fooled by Demyx's personality he can be strong when he wants to be."**__ I already knew that. Demyx __**is**__ strong, he was actually the hardest boss to beat in the game and even I had trouble beating him a few times. But I kept feigning my cluelessness and just raised a brow skeptically._

_**"How much of a threat can Demyx be? I mean, he'd just rather sit around and play his sitar than fight."**__ I answered back. Roxas stared at me almost suspiciously and questioned,_

_**"How do you know that?"**__ . . . . . Oops. Okay, make something up, make something up, make something up!_

_**"He.. j-just seems like a lazy kind of person, plus when Axel showed up he practically cowered in fear."**_

"And because in the near future he's gonna run away from Hades like a scared chicken."_ I added mentally._

_**"Axel can be protective of his friends if they're threatened."**_

_**"Does he now?"**__ I asked slightly interested. Of course he'd be defensive over his friends' safety, anyone would. Although, I'd hate to admit it, I have some doubts about myself for that matter. I'm unlike like any of the others, I'm not brave, strong or very smart. I mean I am intelligent but not like any of the brainiacs out there, and eventhough I don't show it very much I do get scared at some points. But that's enough of my rambling for now. My eyes slowly averted themselves to a blank space on the wall, finding it more interesting at the moment._

_**"Yeah, I don't know how many times he's helped me- Aimée are you okay?"**__ The blonde waved his hand infront of my face when he noticed my unblinking, blank staring. After he moved his hand I blinked and turned to him,_

_**"Hm?"**_

_**"Are you okay?"**__ He repeated._

_**"Yeah I'm prone to spacing out."**__ I said as-a-matter-of-factly. __**"It happens a lot."**__ Roxas smirked a bit and laughed,_

_**"You sure are a weird one."**_

_**"And you're attractive."**__ I replied with a playful smile, Roxas dropped his smirk in favour of a slight blush that crossed his face and Naminé looked up from her drawing. I could see a slight glimmer of jealously in her eyes, I put a hand up defensively and told her, __**"Don't worry I'm not after him he's all yours, I think you two are perfect for each other."**__ I smirked at both of their reactions, Naminé had a huge blush on her cheeks while Roxas's had spread so his whole face was red. At that point I decided to take my leave. I got up out of my seat and walked over to the door, I turned the knob and opened it to show the darkness before me._

_I looked over my shoulder to say my goodbyes, the twosome's faces had returned to their normal colours,_

_**"Anyways I gotta get going, it was nice talking to you two again. See ya later."**__ With that, I turned and walked back into the inky blackness. As I closed the door behind me, Roxas and Naminé stared at the white piece of wood with small smirks._

_**"Should we have told her that she had dog ears and a tail?"**__ Naminé asked._

_**"Now where's the fun in that?"**__ Roxas chuckled._

* * *

It was slightly chilly this morning due to the cool breeze. I snuggled closer to the warmth that was beneath me, burying my head in my pillow as I felt something petting me.

Wait a minute, petting? I opened my eyes slowly and I saw jet black, I lifted my head up tiredly and found myself looking at four huge fingers all the while lying in the palm of someone's hand. Craning my neck up, I saw Demyx's smiling face peering down at me, his eyes were practically sparkling with what seemed like joy for some reason. I would've added the colour of his eyes however there was a problem, I could only see in black and white. I looked down and saw that my hands were now small furry paws, I must be some kind of puppy now. I guess that's why he seems excited.

**"Morning?"** I greeted confusedly. Demyx squealed in delight and started rubbing me against his face babbling about how cute I looked and how soft my fur was. I squirmed in his grip, uncomfortable with this much closeness. Demyx stopped when he heard rustling coming from the bamboo, I turned to the direction where it was coming from and spotted the tall vegetation move. I stared at them boredly, just begging to know what's going to come out of it. Note the sarcasm.

Spikes of red attached to someone's head and was wearing a lot of black stepped out, Axel. As he took one step out of the grove, one of the shoots he pushed aside slipped out and smacked him right in the face, causing him to fall back into the dense growth with a loud yelp of pain. A smirk etched it's way on to my face and I held back a laugh but it came out as a snort and Demyx giggled. The redhead reappeared after getting back on his feet and grumbled something about burning these plants down to the ground.

_"He better not, 'cause if he does I'm gonna bloody kill 'im!"_ I love nature - plants, animals, anything that is natural in the worlds. It's one of the things I feel at peace with and it's a damn shame that so many people are able to destroy it.

"Did you find her?" The nineth ranking Nobody asked as he held me in his arms like a small child would.

_"Find who?"_ I thought. Axel shook his head in disappointment,

"Nope, can't find her anywhere. It's like Aimée just disappeared."

**"Hey, I'm here."** I said. Axel had a quizzical look on his face as he eyed me. I turned my head on to the side a bit and wagged my tail when his attention was turned to me.

"Where'd you get the dog?" Axel asked as he swiped me out of Demyx's hold by the scruff of my neck, I whined from the slight discomfort and the blonde pouted at having his animal (me) taken away from him.

"I found her sleeping next to where you were sleeping." The water controller huffed. My pyromaniac friend stared at me, his vibrant green eyes holding no emotion whatsoever. He scanned down and caught sight of the red heart necklace, I saw a very small glimmer of recognition in his gaze.

"She's obviously someone's pet, see the necklace?" He turned me so I was facing Demyx, his body sagged miserably upon realizing I was wearing a form of identification.

"No fair. First Aimée deserted us now I can't keep the puppy." Demyx whined. My ears drooped a bit, I felt the tiniest bit bad for making the two of them worried. But Axel should know by now that I'm in another form since he's seen me transform first hand. Why hasn't he realized this?

"1. The kid didn't desert us she must've gone to the river or something. And 2. Xemnas wouldn't let you keep a pet anyways he'll just kill it and take its heart, like he did the last three times." he pointed, I snapped my head to him in shock and horror.

_"Xemnas would actually kill defenseless animals and take their hearts? He really is a heartless bastard." __**(Anger) "Too right mate, and the pun was intended."**__ "I know."_

"So you should just forget about keeping this one." The pyro added as he dropped me on the ground. I'm not kidding he literally just let go of my neck and let me drop like five feet to the hard surface below. Now I was tasting dirt. And it sucks. I spat out as much of the earth as I could to try and rid my tongue of the gods-awful taste. I glared up at him and decided to tell the two of them that I'm been here all along.

**"Guys, I haven't gone anywhere I'm right here."** I said. Axel glanced down at me,

"What're you barking about?" I straightened up a bit in confusion,

_"Is he deaf or can't he understand me?"_ I pondered. I chose the second possibility and wrote in the dirt upsidedown with my paw. It's quite fun writing upsidedown, people should try it. I drew an arrow to complete it, my name in capitals with the arrow pointing to me. The lanky male raised a brow at my work and Demyx hopped over to see what was going on, curiosity etched on to his face.

"Wow.." the water elemental awed. "The puppy can write and she has the same name as our friend!" I just about ate dirt again thanks to my magnificent faceplant, my foot twitched in annoyance. I composed myself and shook my head, thinking that Demyx was just as dense as Sora can be sometimes, maybe he was a little denser. I turned to Axel with pleading in hopes that he would catch on to what I was trying to tell them. All I got was a blank stare. Is that I'm like when I give someone a blank stare? I exhaled in disappointment and hung my head, not even the smarter of the duo figured it out.

_"Guess I should just leave then."_ I stood and began to drag myself away from my two Nobody friends and towards the campsite to meet up with the others. I was suddenly picked up by the back of the neck again as I heard a chuckle from behind me, my vision spun until I came face to face with the eighth rank Nobody who had a playful smirk.

"You aren't gonna leave without saying goodbye are ya?" he asked. I blinked and didn't respond, "Well can you at least change back to normal, Aimée?" My blue eyes widened in surprise but that turned into anger, evident from the growl was giving him. Demyx stood there in disbelief with his jaw dropped. I gave Axel a piece of my mind by scolding for tricking me but all that fell upon their ears were angry yips and growls. When I was in the middle of a bark I was flicked across the nose by the spiky redhead, silencing me. "Much better, there's no need to get snappy at me I was only playing."

**"Hn."** I sighed as I cast my sight downawrds to the ground. I just didn't like how he made me feel, guilty for making them worry, irritated for faking about not knowing it was me and upsetting me for messing with my head. I hate it when people toy with my emotions, gets right on my tits. But I forgive him very quickly and easily.

Demyx snapped out of his surprised stupor and inquired,

"This is Aimée?" I stared up at him while the anger side of me took the floor inside my mind.

_**(Anger) "Well done Demyx, you are such a genius. You should be put into a 'special' class for your intelligence." (Peace) "That's not very nice, Demyx is a nice person even if he doesn't have a heart and no matter how clever or dumb he may be." (Affection) "And that's one of the reasons why everyone loves him back on Earth, he's a giant goofball sometimes plus he's funny." (Anger) "He needs a fucking goofball."**__ "No, Tobi's the one who needs a goofball."_ I added. The other sides of me snickered at my comment.

"How come she's a puppy?" Demyx asked curiously. Axel turned and explained to him,

"It's her special power. She can turn into anything she wants and gets all their abilities too." Silence. Then Demyx clenched his fists close to his chest and his eyes glistened with awe.

"So if she's turns into one of us she gets all our powers? That's so cool!" The corners of my mouth turned upwards in a proud doggy smile. Coolness spread throughout the pads of my paws, looking down I found that I had been placed back on to solid ground. I craned my neck to look at up and saw a pair of smiles peering down at me, they walked away towards a portal that had just opened.

"We gotta go back or else Xemnas is gonna kick our asses. We'll see you later, kid." the pyro said as he looked over his shoulder. Demyx being as cheerful as he is waved at me and bid farewell as well. I raised my paw to wave back but my attention was caught by a dragonfly whizzing past, my eyes darted around following its every move. My body started building with energy and I hopped to my feet, muscles tensing, sights focused on the speedy little bug. I lower myself closer to the earth and when the insect came close enough I pounced on it, and missed. It zoomed off out of the grove with me on its tail,

Once I was out of earshot, Demyx turned to Axel and asked,

"Do you think she'll be okay? What's gonna happen if Xemnas captures her?" his taller friend closed his eyes and shook his head,

"I don't know. She'll be fine, Aimée has Sora to help her." the musician nodded his head in an satisfied way and walked through the portal, "And she has Roxas." he added before disappearing into darkness, back to The World That Never Was.

* * *

**"I'ma get'chu!"** I yelled, still chasing the dragonfly.

**"No! Leave me alone!"** It cried in anguish. Zig-zagging in mid air trying to shake me off it, but that didn't sway me I kept my target locked on. That is until a new smell hit my nose, I stopped dead in my tracks and looked around before bounding off in the direction of the scent. The dragonfly poked its tiny head out among the leaves and sighed a breath of relief.

My goal was now to find the source of this smell. It was a nice smell, it smelled like the beach with a mix of some kind of fruit, I couldn't tell what kind. Must be something exotic. I came to a campsite and gazed at all the soldiers wandering around, to be honest they all bored me. A fresh whiff of the salty yet sweet scent hit wafted into my nostrils, I perked my head up and scampered forwards the fourth row of tents. When I rounded the corner I paused as soon as I saw my trio of friends. My tail wagged from side to side in happiness and my tongue rolled out of my mouth, ready to shower my friends in kisses. So I dashed at them.

Since I didn't make a sound, apart from the clinkling of my necklace, they turned to me in surprise when I was like two feet away and Sora didn't have time to react as I jumped him. (A/N: Not in that sexual way, you perverts.) I pinned him to the ground with him having a completely confused look on his face. I lowered my head so my face was closer to his and I gave him a big lick on the cheek. The teenage boy's face grew hot as a slight pink tinge hurriedly appeared.

"'Ello 'ello 'ello." I greeted with a smile, purposely leaving out the eych. Sora began stammering as his blush became more apparent.

"W-W-W-Why.. Why did you do that?" I cocked an eyebrow in confusion. He could understand me?

"You can understand me?" I inquired.

"Of course I can!" he replied. I looked down to find a pair of hands instead of paws pinning down the Keywielder's shoulders, my coloured sight had returned and I was straddling him. A blush of my own crept up on me, I got off Sora quickly and sat on the ground with my back turned to the islander and Disney characters in embarrassment. Snickering filled my ears, ones that came from both Donald and Goofy, it made me frown and lower my head more.

"Looks like someone really likes you Sora." Donald laughed. The long nails attached to my fingers scraped the dirt off the ground like a JCB digger while my knuckles turned almost white.

_"I don't like Sora like that, only as a friend."_ That's what I wanted to say but I kept quiet because of my usual demeanor.

"What would Kairi do if she saw that?" Goofy asked half joking half seriously. That sent a chill down my spine, if Kairi **did** see me greet her best friend like that I think she'd be very angry with me. I'm not even joking. I don't want potential friends being mad at me for any reason, I'd rather just stay out of trouble than be involved. I don't think Sora knew how to answer to Goofy's question, instead I felt a tug of something attached to my head, in response I gave a tiny grunt of discomfort.

I twisted my head to see Donald pulling on something and rubbing the end of it between his index finger and thumb, seemingly fascinated with the texture. It looks like a dog's ear, I shook my head like a dog so the ear escaped the duck's light grip.

"Don't do that." I ordered. Donald didn't hear me as he was now preoccupied with something else that was behind me, so I followed the direction of his gaze. Sticking out from under my cloak was a fluffy brown tail that twitched every now and then. Great, I haven't fully turned back into a human I still have the tail and ears of a dog. I quickly grew bored of sitting here in silence, I now wanted to move on to the next world as soon as possible and it will be a while before we actually get there. Curse the different time span of the actual worlds and the game itself.

I stood up and turned the rest of our little group with my hands in my pockets, "Shall go then?"

The three boys nodded and we casually strolled out of the encampment, we said goodbye to Mulan, Mushu, Shang and the three stooges as we left. On the way back to the ship I had asked Sora about Kairi (still playing dumb), he said that she's one of his best friends along with Riku and that they grew up together on Destiny Island. I smiled as he recalled his happy memories with his buddies. I started to tease him by asking if he like-liked Kairi to which he was at a loss for words and a small blush had returned to him.

Soon we reached the grove where we parked the Gummi, it sat there in all it's marvellous red and yellow glory awaiting for one of us to fly it. The door opened just as we arrived.

_"Now that's what I call a ready welcome."_ I complimented. We stepped inside the ship with the door closing as the last one walked in and took our seats, me in the driver's seat 'cause I called shotgun, Sora sitting next to me and Donald and Goofy behind us.

"Alright lads, let's go." I said as I clicked my fingers. I began pressing random buttons and switches, Donald looked like he would blow a fuse at my pressing thinking that I was going to blow up the Gummi. I can see it all now, a button is pushed, the ship blows up and we end up as early Thanksgiving dinner for squirrels. Do not question what I say, I can be random anytime I want. Why? 'Cause I'm weird that's why, and people like that. After I was done pushing the buttons the ship rumbled, engines whirred and through the window we saw the shrubs and the grove sinking as we floated upwards. When we were about forty feet in the air I pushed handles forward so that we took off towards our next destination.

_3 Hours Later.._

We came to a large white door in the middle of our flight, the next assault course we have to go through. I didn't need permission to go in I just flew into the giant keyhole on the door and now we were in a tunnel of light. I'd just like to add that at some point during the flight, my extra appendages had disappeared.

"Get ready." Sora cautioned, I nodded in response. Everything turned white before fading to the outer space like scene where our battle begun. The Nobodies instantly fired at us, coming out of their own silvery portals firing red balls of energy, my mind was sent into action and I rapidly pressed the two little red buttons on the steering handles to fire our unlimited ammo.

As I fired, my mind was elsewhere,

_"Now that I think about it. This ammo, could it be that they're made from light?"_ It's possible since you can defeat Heartless and Nobodies quicker with weapons of light, the Keyblade being the most obvious examp- BANG! CRACKLE!

The ship jolted to the side causing Sora, Goofy and Donald to be thrown to the left in the seats, thank the seatbelts they were wearing so they didn't fly out and smack into the Gummi's walls. Yes, the Gummi does have seatbelts I checked with Donald earlier. I kept a tight grip on the handles so I could instantly right ourselves, we were just hit by one of the Nobody ships, and the sparks that rained on to the dash board just narrowly missing my head. That made me pissed as hell. How dare they try to destroy my ship! I say 'my' because I become very possessive over what I claim as mine.

_"Motherfucking wankers!"_ I growled mentally, I mashed the buttons rapidly with lasers shooting out of the left side only. As the enemy ships fired at us I was steering the wheel like crazy, frantically avoiding the shots they were blasting at us. Each time one of our shots hit the weaker ships they exploded instantly, the bigger and stronger ones took a few more before meeting the same fate. When the Bomb Bells appeared I aimed right at them so they made all the other pests go down with them, all four of them were destroyed in a matter of seconds with the rest got caught in the blasts.

I switched my sights back to the window so I stared straight ahead, we were in the clear but not for long as the big boss ship of this level descended to us. We awed for the briefest of moments at the size of this thing before getting back on track with our mission; destroying this bastard and fly the rest of the way in peace. As with the last dozens of enemies, I attacked the Nobody with everything this ship had and it retaliated with it's own. I ducked and dodged the hundreds of bolts while trying to aim for the arms. Occasionally we'd get hit but one by one each arm blew up in a cloud of fire and smoke until there was none left.

But this is where the tricky part comes, the opposing ship twitched then spun at a rapid pace, the red orbs flew at us just as fast. The Highwind Lv.1 rocked from side to side as I tried my hardest to avoid the oncoming projectiles while bombarding it at the same time. When a fifth shot hit us a red alert light and alarm went off to signal that we were close to getting destroyed. That's when I started to panic, my eyes screwed shut as I blindly fired and moved out of the way, I didn't want to die so soon on this journey and there isn't a reset option, this was real. When I heard multiple explosions I thought I was hearing our doom but I soon heard cheers of victory around me, I slowly opened my eyes to find that we were travelling down another tunnel of light.

"Great job Aimée, you did it!" Sora praised. I looked at him wide-eyed, clearly in shock from what happened. I glanced behind me to see that Goofy and Donald gave me thankful smiles. I also noticed that Donald was holding some blueprints in his hands, must be for the better models of the Gummi.

"Swap." I said to Sora. He looked at me in a confused way.

"What?"

"Swap." I repeated as I pointed to both our seats. He soon got the message and unbuckled his seatbelt to switch over.

I let go of the wheel to let Sora in the driver's seat for the rest of the way there, my legs gave way so I plopped down in his seat, thumbs stiff and hands sore, however I didn't let it bother me. Neither did I let the fact that we nearly died bother me either. A wave of fatigue washed over me.

"How long before we get to the next world?" I asked through a yawn. Sora looked down at a small screen on the control panel before saying,

"Six hours."

"Hn." I replied. Are kidding me? Why does it take so long to get from one world to another? Never mind, I'll just go to sleep until we get there. As I closed my eyes I realised that I've been gone from my world for.. two or three days I think. I wonder if everybody's freaking out about my disappearance, if I told them where I have been they'd most likely think I'm crazy, send me to the looney bin and ground me for months. That was my last thought before slipping into sleep.

* * *

_(Dream Sequence)_

_As I came to the end of the song, I gazed up at the painting of angels on the ceiling. It was beautiful, the little cherubs smiling down on the entire ballroom and peeking out from behind the clouds. Whoever did this piece of artwork should be jolly well proud of themselves._

_Warping sounds drifted into my ears, I turned on my heel to face a swirling black, purple and very dark blue portal. A tall man wearing the Organization's cloak walked through, I backed up a bit to create some distance between us incase it was Xaldin since he's the only one out of the surviving members who has this kind of muscle size. Lexaeus is gone so it's definitely not him._

_"Who are you?" I questioned. The man didn't answer at first but after a moment of silence he spoke,_

_"It doesn't matter to you who I am. What I want to know is who you are." Rude much?_

* * *

A metallic thud woke me out of my slumber and ruining my dream, I groggily opened my eyes and lifted my head with a bit of difficulty, my neck was sore most likely from having slept funny. I blinked twice as I gazed out of the windshield. Just outside of the ship was a huge black castle, statues of gargoyles lurched over the edges, glaring down at us with their stone cold eyes.

"Let's go." Sora said. We nodded and followed the Keyblader out of the vessel towards the entrance. The doors stood twice as high as us, when you look up you'd think that the top tower could touch the clouds. The sky was a perfect sunset colour, oranges mixed with light purples and pinks, yet what it was like inside was a complete contrast to the visible light out here.

Goofy was the first to enter this glum domain then Donald, then Sora and finally me.

"Hey, what is this place?" Sora asked as he eyed the grand hall. I gawped at the interior of the castle too, it was dark and gothic. One of my favourite places to be.

"Beast's Castle." I answered.

"It's huge!" Donald commented.

"And sorta gloomy, don't ya think?"

"I wonder who lives here." Sora wondered.

_"Obviously the Beast lives here."_ Right on cue, a great roar echoed through the castle making us jump with surprise. For a moment all was silent before Goofy turned to us.

"Hey, does anybody else recognize that?" On impulse I shook my head while Sora held his chin and thought about who made the earthshaking noise as it sounded for a second time. My fellow brunette shortly concluded who the owner of the roar was,

"Hey! That's the Beast!"

"Yeah!" Donald agreed.

"Maybe we should check up on him." We nodded but before we could start with such task we spotted a Shadow crawling along the ground in its 2-D form headed towards an open room. The door was ajar with a soft light shining through, I can't remember what the part of this building was called so I'll just call it 'The Den'.

"C'mon!" Donald proclaimed. As usual he's the one to charge after a Heartless first and we follow in suit. Donald peeked into the room, seeking out the Heartless. "Where did it go?" he pondered. We entered and scanned the vicinity, for me this place gave a kind of warm homely feeling that could make you relax in this dark, silent castle. I followed the white bird to the enchanted rose, just as curious about it as he was, well I was more fascinated with it. Donald reached out to touch the glass that protected it from any outsiders when his path was blocked by the Shadow that had creeped in here earlier. We jumped back in surprise and soon we found ourselves surrounded by a whole swarm of them.

All four of us drew our weapons for a fight, I turned my hands into deadly looking scythes so I could slice each of these Heartless in half. As soon as the first Pureblood made the first move, we sprang into action. Every time a Heartless came near us I beheaded them easily, the blades smeared with black essence as they disappeared in a cloud of inky smoke. A minute went by and we had slaughtered many of the little blighters yet they still kept on popping up.

We were cornered against the fireplace as more Heartless kept on encroaching upon us. We were getting so fed up with this, so many of these little buggers keep on coming at us, Donald screamed for somebody to help us. And help did arrive. The doors slammed open and entering the room was the master of the castle himself. The Beast. I shivered under his hard glare and overwhelmingly intimidating aura, all the Shadows in the room leapt at him but their attempts were pitiful as the Beast swatted them away with ease.

"Just in time!" Sora piped, glad to see one of his allies save us. The Beast, however, didn't feel those same emotions. He merely pushed Sora out of the way, sending the poor boy into a wall and he did the same with Donald and Goofy. His attention was focused only on his precious rose. Seeing as I knew what was going to happen, I backed up into the darkest corner I could find and curled up so I looked as small as possible (classic defensive position), my scythe hands gently resting on my knees.

As soon as he picked up the flower in its glass casing he stalked out the room without so much as giving us a second glance.

"Gee, do ya think he maybe forgot who we are?" Goofy inquired.

"With this many Heartless around, something must be up."

"Why'd he have to do that?" Donald grumbled as he rubbed his jaw.

Well now we have three things to do on our list:

1. Free the servants

2. Kill the Thresholder

And 3. Defeat the Beast

* * *

The sounds of harsh footsteps rebound off the walls as a tall, hooded man trudged down the hallway. Green markings guided him towards a room with many computers screens in one corner of the area. One of the screens had the figure of a spiky haired boy while the rest had what looked like stats and information regarding the individual. Sitting in the chair behind the keyboards was a man dressed in red and black with bandages covering almost his entire face.

"How is Sora doing on his journey?" the man in red asked. The hooded man walked into the room the close the distance between the two.

"He's doing well after being asleep for a year." he replied, as the male at the computers analysed the screens he nodded.

"And what of the girl? She's getting along well with your friend."

"I suppose. But Sora shouldn't trust her so easily, she's been around two members of the Organization. She could be a spy." the man in black scoffed, suspicion lacing his deep voice. The other's fingers danced on top of the keys, the clicking echoing ever so slightly.

"While your suspicions are agreeable, you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover." The first man walked over to the computers, looming over the second's shoulder. "Besides, it's no surprise that she'd befriend certain Nobodies, it is part of her role afterall."

"Even so DiZ, I'm going to pay a few visits to this new 'friend' of Sora's." With that being said he created a Corridor of Darkness and walked into it, merging with the inky blackness before it vanished. DiZ stared with his single orange eye and a smirk on his face.

"Just remember Riku, this girl is full of mystery. You never know what she has in store for us." he chuckled.

* * *

**Attention reader's I have decided that after reading one of my many fave fanfics, 'Man, I Miss the Kitties', as of now I will now be adding little fun facts about my character, Aimée/Me.**

_Fun Fact: Aimée always carries around a notebook to write down her ideas and characters for her own novels._

_Fact: Goofball is also a slang term for a tranquilizer drug._

**I would like to say that it's nice to see that I have readers from other countries such as the USA and the Phillipines for example. TTFN!**


	15. Ballroom Encounter

Chapter 15: Ballroom Encounter

**I do not own Kingdom Hearts or its characters they belong to Square Enix nor do I own Fruits Basket, I only own my OCs, her animal forms (except from other games) and the special Heartless that appear.**

**VERY SORRY FOR THE DELAY! D: Reason why I disappeared off the Earth was because college has been giving me so much work that I haven't had time to work on my chapters plus I've got to try and make interviews for university before the internal deadline so it has to be very soon. I am also sorry if any of the fight scenes aren't very good, I kinda rushed this a bit because of a promise to a friend.**

**I have also been to the circus two days ago and I'm super happy because I won the raffle and won a giant stuffed dragon! And I hardly win anything! So I'm really chuffed :D**

**By the way I have seen Sora and Riku's different gear for KH 3D: DDD and I have to say that they are both the smex! Although I hate Riku's new haircut, he's still sexy as anything but I just wish he kept his long hair.**

* * *

After coming out of my corner, you heard right I've already claimed a bit of this castle as my territory, I walked over to the hologram Moogle that just appeared after Donald had begun nursing his hurt jaw. I morphed my hands back into their normal shapes and flexed my fingers to get rid of any cramps. Each of my fingers gave a resounding click from the flexing and I became satisfied when every one had been rid of the cramps. I looked around the room and in the left corner near the door I spotted a Moogle hologram. I wondered if we had enough potions and ethers and other stuff we might need but I didn't want to ask, so I'll just by some just in case. Better to be safe than sorry. I walked up to the holographic image,

"Alright?" I greeted casually. The Moogle looked up at me,

"Nice to meet you, I'm Monty, kupo." he said. "Are you Aimée, kupo?" I raised one of my black brows and looked at Monty in confusion.

_"How does he know my name?"_

"Yeess.. How do you know me?" I asked. The Moogle flew up higher so he was on my level and answered,

"Mog told me about you, and he told me that you and your friends are on a journey, kupo. So if you need anything me and my friends are at your service, kupo." That being said, I thought that now may be a good time to buy some potions and other things we need.

I dug into my pockets and took out a handful of munny, the different sized diamond-shaped currency jingled in my hand, when I looked at Monty I swear I could see a glint of greed in his eyes eventhough they're closed. I asked what I could get for this much and he showed me, he waved his stubby arm and a holographic selection popped up in front of me, each showing a different item in the shop. After making my decision I told Monty the items I wanted and how many I chose he nodded, the hologram selection disappeared and a group of light orbs replaced them. I held out both of my hands and the munny I held glowed white then shot off into the air like a bullet.

_"Hn. I wonder if that's how they take munny."_ I thought mentally. All the orbs that had first appeared gathered in my hands. As the white glow disappeared, my limbs felt a bit heavier as the purchased items rested in my palms. I bowed my head in thanks and Monty waved me goodbye as walked over to the trio. I bought a few potions, elixirs and four ability rings. They were talking with each other while nursing any small injuries the Beast may have given them when he pushed them.

"What's gotten into the Beast? It's not like him to act like this.." Sora asked his two friends.

"Maybe he's just stressed with the Heartless runnin' around and all." Goofy suggested looking at the teen with concern. Sora folded his arms over his chest and stared at the floor in deep thought.

"But it's also the Nobodies now too." Sora replied.

"Well he didn't have to push us like that! There must be something else going on." Donald fumed. I recollected the reason for the Beast's behaviour from my memories and had to agree with Donald. That something else bothering the transformed prince was a certain wind elemental Nobody. A plan began to formulate in my brain.

I nudged Sora's arm with my shoulder to get his attention, he looked at me then to the potions and accessories then back to me. I stretched my arms further out, offering him the items to which he took two potions, an elixir and an ability ring. He thanked me with a grateful smile, I repeated my actions to Donald and Goofy and their reactions were the same. I gazed down at what I had left, one of each.

_"Looks like this'll do for now."_ I put the health restorers into one of my coat pockets and slipped the ability ring on to my right ring finger. I flexed my fingers and looked over the ring, I didn't feel anything weird happen maybe some new abilities will show up during a battle. Although, I doubt that I have gained an ability apart from my shapeshifting because I haven't shown any use of spellcasting or increased speed or anything. Hm...

After everybody equipped their accessories we left the den and into the empty entrance hall. Donald stared at the staircase as though he were looking for something.

"What is it?" Sora asked Donald.

"I just know I saw a lady at the top of those stairs..." Donald replied. We turned our heads up to the staircase that lead to the.. East Wing I think it was. We brought our gazes back to each other as Goofy suggested,

"Well... If the Beast is here in the castle, that lady musta been Belle, right?"

"Yeah, maybe so." Sora agreed. "Belle might know what's happened to the Beast too."

"C'mon! Let's go find her!" We sped up towards the stairs but as soon as we were halfway up three orbs of darkness appeared before us revealing new Heartless, the Hook Bats. We leapt at them as one and attacked them hurriedly, my nails turned into curved black claws and raked their little blue bodies, it took a mere two or three swipes from my claws for them to be defeated and one hit from the Keyblade, shield and a Thundaga spell. I did, however, have some of trouble attacking them because they kept flying out of my way and I couldn't jump very high unlike Sora. The ones I couldn't reach, Sora and Donald finished them off. The blue bats disappeared in puffs of black smoke as we continued our ascent up the stairs towards the East Wing, as we ran I couldn't help but feel a bit disappointed with myself. Sora's abilities are much better than mine, he's stronger and faster than me too but I do realise that it's because he's been fighting Heartless and other Disney baddies since a year ago. Plus he's also got the Keyblade, one of the most badass weapons I've ever seen and I wondered what it'd be like to wield it.

I placed my hand in my coat pockets as we ran the rest of the way up the stairs, I ran every two steps because it was quicker than putting my foot on one step at a time but on the way up I tripped on the stairs. Yeah, I tripped going up the stairs and that actually happens often. I lifted my head up to see the three boys staring at me, they looked like they were trying not to laugh. I gave a very brief smirk before losing it, I pushed myself up and continued going up the stairs. The snickers behind me was enough evidence to show that they thought my fall was funny, I didn't really care if they laughed at my minor expense I'd laugh too.

We entered the East Wing corridor and it was dark, not dark enough to be completely black but more like early evening.

_"Bloody Hell, it got dark quick. We've only been here like.. ten minutes?"_ The darkened corridor was coloured shades of pale blue and purple. The paintings of countryside scenery were amazing as were the little gargoyle busts in some places.

"Shhh!" Sora whispered as we got closer to Belle's room.

"What am I going to do?" We heard a woman ask herself from within. Sora tiptoed to the other side of the door and pointed at it. I kept a fair bit of distance away from my group as Donald and Goofy nodded, with Donald stepping infront of the door and getting ready to barge into it. He charged but before he could make contact someone from inside opened it and the duck ended up falling flat on his face.

I peeked out from behind the door, blinking owlishly as Belle picked up the duck and gave him a tight hug. After talked with the other three. Sora looked to his right then to his left probably trying to find me, he turned around so he faced the door and therefore spotting my still peeking from behind the frame. The other three looked over to where Sora was running and they spotted me too.

"What are you doing out here still? Are you scared or something?"

"I-I'm not scared, I'm just sh-sy- I mean **shy** around new people." I explained as I suddenly found the floor more interesting as my face heated up a bit. A hand wrapped around my wrist and tugged gently, I twitched at the foreign contact from someone other than my family members and blushed a little more. Sora gave a friendly smile and said,

"Don't worry, there's nothing to be shy about." He lead me into the room, my eyes averting back to the floor the entire walk until we stopped.

I lifted my gaze from the floor to the woman before me, she wore a pleasant smile on her fair-skinned face. I blushed a little more until my face was completely red from shyness and said quietly,

"B-Bonjour."

"Bonjour to you too. Are you from a nearby village?" I shook my head silently, I could understand if she thought I was French, I get fair shares of people back home asking me similar questions. Sora looked a little confused yet curious at the same time, most likely about my origins. He dismissed his curiosity for a moment before introducing me,

"This is Aimée, we met her a couple of days ago and she's gonna help us find Riku and the King." Has it really been only two days since I started travelling with Sora? Hang on, I first arrived in the virtual Twilight Town and I stayed there for.. three? No, no, four days so all together then we stayI've been in this universe for.. nearly a week! Time sure has flown by. We moved back to the main topic at hand with Donald asking,

"So the Beast won't talk to you?"

"He has been acting strange lately. The only ones who might know why are locked up in the dungeon. I want to help them but.." Belle trailed off as her expression took on a more sad tone.

"Wait a second. Who locked up who?" Sora asked confused as he placed his hands behind his head but he didn't realise that he was still holding on to my wrist so he brought my hand up to his head as well. I looked to his head at the feeling his spiky hair beneath my fingers, his spikes weren't exactly spiky at all.

_"Woah.. despite its spiky appearance his hair's actually pretty soft. This is gonna be a new urge to resist."_

"The Beast locked up his servants."

"But why?" Donald questioned. Belle shook her head and replied,

"That's what I don't know."

"Hmm. Where is this dungeon?" Belle looked at all of us and told us the directions to the dungeon.

"You can get to the undercroft from the west hall. The dungeon is down there."

"West hall. Got it."

"Be careful!" Belle cautioned. Sora just smirked and gave her a reassurring thumbs up. Before we headed out for the west hall I turned to Sora.

"Sora," he turned to face me. "Can I have my wrist back please?" The fellow brunette looked confused for a moment before gazing down to his hand, finding it holding my coat-concealed wrist. He let go and scratched the back of his head bashfully with a little blush on his face.

"Heh heh. Sorry about that." I smiled before going over to the massive chest just behind Belle, I tried opening it with my hands but it wouldn't open, I even tried kicking and that didn't work.

_"Hn. Must be locked."_ A tap on my shoulder made me turn to find Sora behind me, I asked him to open the chest since I couldn't. He summoned the Keyblade and slammed it down on to the top of the chest, it clicked open and a large orb rose from inside and popped to reveal a map. I grabbed the rolled up map as it began to fall again, I unrolled it to have a look at its contents. It showed a layout of the castle, with red lines marking where we had access to. I would say where abouts we are on the map except.. I have no clue how to read maps. I pushed the map into Sora's hands to let him figure out our location, but I doubt he could, and stalked out the door. I took a deep breath and sighed in content.

_"I'm finally by myself. About time too, I thought I'd never get a moment's peace from those lot."_ I'm not trying to sound mean it's just that I prefer being by myself all the time, but since I don't have anything to travel from world to world in and I'd be outnumbered against hordes of Heartless and Nobodies I have no choice but to stay in a group. My back pressed against the wall to lean on and I folded my arms folded over my chest. My eyes strayed over to the evening sky through the window, _"I wonder if Mum's posted missing person's posters yet... Meh, I'm sure everything will be fine she'll just think I've gone to a friend's house."_ I thought nonchalantly as I closed my eyes. _"Oh wait, what friends?"_

It was at that moment that Belle's bedroom doors creaked open, I didn't need to open my eyes to know that it was the rest of my group but I gave a side glance anyway.

"Ready to go?" Sora asked me. I nodded and gave a 'Hn' as my response. Pushing myself off the wall, I followed my group walking a little behind Sora. Donald lead the way with the map in one hand and a compass with the Kingdom Crown on it in the other. The East Wing hallway was even darker now but still had enough light for us to see where we were going.

"How come Belle asked you if you're from a village?" Sora asked curiously. Ugh.. socialising, one of my least favourite skills.

"My names." I answered simply. "They're French."

"What does that have to do with it?" He replied. I sighed in exasperation and explained,

"We're most likely somewhere in a country called France. My names are originally from France so they are French names."

"Oh. So are you French?" Sora asked stupidly. I gave him a 'Really?' look and said with mild annoyance,

"If I was you wouldn't be able to talk to me, would you?"

"Alright, I was just asking!" We kept silent for a while after that as we crossed the staircase to the opposite side of us so we could enter the west hall. It was when we began walking up the steps that he started talking again.

"You know, you haven't told us where you're from." I looked at him and said,

"I'm from a place known as the United Kingdom or Great Britain, in a country called England." Sora looked a little shocked but was more excited and stared in wonder.

"You're from a kingdom?" He asked with his blue eyes shining with childish curiosity, he was probably wondering what my country looked like. "Does it have a king and queen? And castles? And dragons?" He questioned. I smirked at his questions.

_"Guess the only things he knows about kingdoms are from stories and fairytales... and maybe from some worlds he's been to."_

"We do still have a queen and we have many castles but it's just a shame that we don't have any dragons." I answered, Sora looked a little crestfallen at hearing we have no dragons. So I continued, "Well, we do but they don't have wings or breathe fire but they are still very dangerous and they live thousands of miles away." This seemed to cheer him up a bit. _"Y'know now that I think about it my country is separated by the ocean from the rest of the continent. So Britain's an island, guess that makes me an islander."_ I pondered in my mind as I put my hands in my pockets, a small smile appearing on my face.

_"Guess that's one thing we have in common."_ I thought to myself. I knew the answer already but I still had to ask,

"What about you?" Sora looked to the ceiling as he talked about his home.

"I'm from Destiny Islands. It's a pretty peaceful place, you should see it, it's got the best beaches I've ever seen." I thought back to scenes in the first and second games where Destiny Island was shown and I had to admit, it did look like a lovely beach.

"So, what's it like in Britain?" Sora asked curiously. I assumed he was on about the weather so I told him.

"Miserable. It's cold and rainy for a lot of the year." I admit that was rather blunt but it's the truth, Britain may be an island but since it's a bit closer to the north we get rainy weather that sometimes lasts for days. Sora sweatdropped at my bluntness but didn't say anything else for the rest of the walk to the west hall. The surrounding was a complete contrast to the other hall, this one was lit with a warm glow, beige wall paper with a long red carpet across the floor and the walls lined with suits of armor.

"There should be a way into the undercroft around here..." We scanned the hallway until we spotted something several meters away, a wardrobe blocking a door.

"Do you MIND!?" She asked grumpily having being disturbed from her sleep. We jumped in shock from the tone of voice and she hopped back to her original place in front of the door.

"And I was just starting to get comfortable..." She complained with displeasure. "May I help you?"

"Huh? What? Oh, right- Belle needs us to go to the dungeon." Sora explained.

"Goodness! You're here to help my friends? Well, why didn't you say so?" The wardrobe said delightedly.

"Er..."

"I'm sorry I startled you. Oh, I used to be human, you know, until the enchantress cast her spell." She explained with an almost sorrowful look in her eyes. "I was turned into a wardrobe when the prince was turned into a beast.

"The prince is the Beast!?" Donald exclaimed in disbelief with eyes wide as dinner plates. Goofy had the same expression as he repeated Donald's words in reverse.

"The Beast is a prince!?" The wardrobe nodded, lowered her head and closed her eyes as she remembered that winter's night.

"Although his behaviour was far from princely at the time." Sora became curious about the spell that was cast on the castle and its inhabitants.

"What's this about a... spell?" The cursed woman leant forward and began to tell the story of that past event with a serious face.

"Well, it was a cold winter's night..." she dramatically began. The three boys leaned forward with interest and anticipation while I just stood there with my hands still in my pockets with a bored expression. The walking clothes holder straightened up and said, "And that's enough for now. You can hear the rest when you rescue the others. It'll give you something to look forward to." The boys slumped with Donald expressing his disappointment as I smiled inwardly.

_"What a cliffhanger that was."_

"Hurry now. The dungeon is damp and chilly. Certainly no place for a clock!"

"Don't worry, we'll get Cogsworth, Lumiere and the others out." I assurred without thinking, only just realising what I'd said when the wardrobe stared at me in surprise.

"Do you know my friends? I've never seen you before or heard them mention someone looking like you." She said in confusion. I stared at her for a moment.

"Uhh..," I turned to the boys and saw their puzzled faces with Donald frowning at me in suspicion. "I-I.. I'm psychic!" I answered with a hesitant smile. _"__**(All)**__**Nice save!**__"_ The wardrobe reared back in total surprise.

"Really? Can you tell the future as well?" She asked curiously. I guess I could reveal a little bit of what I know just to stay true to my half lie.

"Y-Yeah. I have forseen that everyone who's been cu-cursed will turn back into humans not long after the defeat of Organization XIII and the Beast will finally learn to love." I said as mystically as possible with a serious look on my face. The wardrobe gasped and a excited smile graced her features,

"That's wonderful! Oh, I do hope it comes true." It put a small smile on my face to make someone happy, and that hardly ever happens.

Sora turned to us with determination showing,

"Alright, let's get going." the rest of us nodded with me adding my usual 'Hn' as a response. We opened the door to enter a short, dark passage which lead to a musty old cellar. As we took the first few steps in I suddenly remembered my plan from earlier so I stopped in my tracks and called quietly to them.

"Guys?" They stopped, looking over their shoulders at me, "I-I've gotta go back upstairs, I have to se- **check** on something imp-portant, okay?"

"Alright, and by the time you get back we'll have rescued the others." Sora grinned confidently. I smirked at him and turned back round to exit the cellar.

_"He's kind of cute when he grins like that."_ I thought as the soft light from the west hall greeted me, I cautiously scanned the right and left areas of the hall and no Heartless or Nobodies were in sight, only the wardrobe who was currently sleeping. My hands slowly pushed the cellar door closed until it quietly locked into place. It was when I was two feet away that the sounds of metal clashing and male grunting echoed from the other side of the door, I hesitated in actually carrying out my intentions and was opting for going back and helping the others but I soon decided against it, reassurring myself that they'd be fine.

* * *

My breath came out as short pants after I had bounded up the flight of stairs as fast as I could and down the hall towards the Beast's room. I slowed down til I was tiptoeing and peeked through the small gap between the bedroom's doors. The Beast's back was turned, completely immersed in what I assumed to be his enchanted rose.

I used my power to transform into a bat, a small one so I could remain inconspicuous and not be noticed by him. The soft flapping of my wings were almost inaudible, I don't know if the furry animal combination heard, I don't think he did or he did but chose to ignore me. Either way, I was just glad I wasn't noticed. I used my feet to cling to the skirtingboard on the ceiling, hanging upside down on instinct. All was quiet, I surveyed the room from my topsy-turvy position taking in every detail, scratch in the walls and spider's on their webs in some corners.

Wait. Spiders? My form shivered with at mere mention of the word.

"It's time you dealt with Belle." A smooth, masculine voice told the cloaked monster. I snapped my head towards the source to spot Xaldin at the Beast's side even though he wasn't there before. "She's scheming to take everything you have. This castle, your precious rose. And then - your life. Trust no one. Feed your anger! Only anger can keep you strong." My expression was blank but I was gritting my teeth behind closed lips and seething in my mind.

_"Twat. How dare he spout this kind of rubbish, c'mon Beast you should know better than this! What I would give (within reason) so I could teach this tosser a lesson."_ Xaldin was one of the characters I hated the most in the game, trying to turn Sora's allies against him and his sadistic attitude was what really got to me the most.

"I've had enough of strength. There's only one thing I want-"

"What? To love, and be loved in return?" I knew what he was going to say next and I couldn't help but say the line so similar to the narrator's in the film.

"Who could ever love a beast?" The words themselves stung me a bit, I know those words were to affect at the prince but.. they indirectly affected me too. An empty feeling inside me began to rise, I could almost hear it mocking me. I scrunched my face in anger and trembled with said emotion, and for some reason I felt this burning sensation in my chest. Then the doors opened with Sora, Donald and Goofy arriving with their weapons drawn, their bodies were marred with cuts and red areas that were certain to leave bruises

"See? She has accomplices." With a wave of his hand a purple barrier rose between the Beast and his encased rose. I was so distracted by my growing frustration at the void inside me that I didn't realise that I aimed a Fire attack at Xaldin until the burning went away. When I came back to my senses I just managed to glimpse at the orange flicker on the tip of the Nobody's boot just as he was teleporting back to his base.

_"Wonder if he's realised his foot's on fire."_ I wondered. Imagining the look on his face when he realises it made a Cheshire Cat's grin stretch across my face.

"Hey, Prince!" Sora greeted using the Beast's current and in a way former title. The Beast sucked in a huge breath and a bellowing roar erupted from him, I could feel the walls shake at the intensity. We jumped, a quite startled by his roar,

"Oh, dear. Master!" Cogsworth cried fearfully. The Beast lunged at them, swiping the air where they had once stood but dodged his claws in time. He twisted around, eyes narrowing and face contorted in rage. The battle quickly began, Sora striking the Beast in quick succession with his Keyblade with Cogsworth following him like a shadow waiting for chances to try and snap his master out of his enraged state. I flapped my wings and flew from my perch to circle above the fight, I tried casting another Fire spell but it didn't do much good since it was only a small fireball and the behemoth didn't seem affected by it at all.

_"Why must I be so useless right now? And I can't bloody transform without getting my sodding teeth kicked in!"_ So I just hovered wondering what I could do right now. Donald was knocked to the floor by a strong blow from the cloaked monster, he strained to get up and he was beaten up quite badly, he looked like he was ready to faint. My heart jumped into my throat when Beast leapt at him with his razor sharp claws ready to finish him. I instantly shut my eyes and waited for the duck's agonised cry but it never came, instead the sound of something hard impacting on metal came. I squinted an eye open then fully opened both to see to my relief Goofy protecting his friend from harm.

When Goofy gave a pained yelp after being swatted away from Donald, I dived down chittering like the bat I was and got in the Beast's line of sight. He growled angrily and tried to get me out of his face using his claws, it worked momentarily but I persisted and went back to making him focus on me.

_**"(Fear) Oh my days, what are you doing? You're gonna get killed! He'll tear you to shreds or bite you in half!"**__ "Don't worry, I know what I'm doing."_ Not exactly the best time to be arguing with myself but whatever. A light from behind struck the raging prince at the same time Cogsworth cried,

"Master, wake up!" This made him go into a calm state for a moment, allowing Sora to attack with the Kingdom Key multiple times before his anger worked up again. While me, Sora and Cogsworth were dealing with Beast, Donald got back to his feet raised his wand and cast Cure on himself. His injuries healed steadily and he seemed to become re-energised, he did the same to Goofy and both were soon back in action.

I latched on to the Beast's face, covering his eyes with my wings so he blinded. He attempted to shake me off but when that didn't work he reached for me with his hands, a jumped on to his head and sunk my fangs into one of his ears. He roared, reared an arm back and made contact with me. Due to the drastic difference in our sizes and strength, his strike was like being hit by ten tonne bricks and I slammed into the wall with a small cracking sound. Once I hit the ground, I laid there disoriented and facing the ceiling just listening to the battle noises within the room. After a final roar everything went quiet. I turned my head to see what happened and saw the Beast fall to his hands and knees in defeat. At least he's back to normal now.

"Cogsworth... what happened?" he asked in his dazed state, carefully rising to stand at full height. The talking clock began fumbling with his words, like how I do with mine a lot of the time.

"Well, Master...ah, you see...that is... How shall I say...ah, actually...mmm..."

"Well, you put everybody down there in that dungeon!" Donald interrupted bluntly.

"I did what?" the prince asked in disbelief.

"Ah...you did!" He lowered his head in shame at his earlier actions.

_"Poor guy. It's not his fault. Well... it is a bit, he should've ignored what Xaldin told him, he doesn't know the guy. One of the golden rules in the universe, don't trust what a stranger says especially if he's wearing sinister looking clothes like that. But he does have the burden of the curse on his shoulders too and that can make anyone on edge and vulnerable to believe almost anything."_ I thought. I watched the scene play out upside-down, waiting to see how long it would take for them to notice me.

"Who was that guy you were talking to?"

"Xaldin... that's his name. He came from the darkness... He... used my anger to control me. He took all my sorrow, my sadness, my pain- and turned it all into rage." He looked at his hands in remorse. "There was nothing I could do... I could no longer see the truth."

"Well, I'll be. That must be why you threw all of your friends down there into the dungeon, You wanted to make sure you didn't hurt 'em, right?" Goofy deduced, his logic to try to cheer up the Beast. He questioned himself,

"Was that it? Was it to protect them?"

"Sure. We know you're good inside." Goofy said with his usual smile.

"He's right, Master. We've all seen how kind you can be. Afterall... Belle can see that goodness in your heart, but I'm afraid you've yet to-" Cogsworth trailed off, thinking that Beast knew what he was going to say. The furred monster's head rose in realisation.

"Belle! I've mistreated her... I've mistreated her and been so selfish."

"She didn't say anything about that."

"She'd never tell anyone of my cruelty... She's too good." I blinked owlishly and thought that maybe I could provide some sort of consolation.

"D... D-Don't be so hard on yourself." They looked in my direction, at last. "So what if you've got a few fa- **flaws**, as long as you know what they are, you can rise above them then people won't care about what negative traits you might have." He averted his gaze to the floor, his face had doubt written all over it.

"Even so.. what can I possibly do to surpass my flaws?" He asked.

"You have to figure that out for yourself." I answered. At this point I had rolled over on to my belly and Donald and Goofy took this moment to come to my aid. Donald grabbed me a bit roughly and stared with his beady black eyes in curiosity, Goofy as well. Now was not the time to be inspecting me like a new toy but like with Cogsworth, the magician began prodding me with his finger and even stretching out my wings to feel the leathery webbing. I let out a shrill shriek when he stretched my right wing causing him to hold me away from him as he jumped from shock.

_"Crap. Don't tell me my arm's broken."_ I groaned mentally.

"Gee Donald, I think she might be hurt. Y'know from when the Beast hit her?" Goofy suggested. The dog was right I was hurt but I didn't want to admit it. Donald thought for a moment before brandishing his wand and pointing it at me. It glowed a healthy green then the same coloured light formed above me with a small yellow flower casting the healing magic on me. My wing was overcome with a calm, cool sensation before fading along with the light. I flapped my wing and sure enough I felt no pain or soreness from it.

I smiled gratefully as I changed back into my normal form, once again leaving the two boys to stare in shock and awe.

"Cheers mate." I thanked with my British vocab. After I got up we went back to rejoin Sora.

"Why don't you just talk to her?" Sora suggested. Our ally looked away.

"But..."

"No excuses! C'mon, we'll go with you." Along the way back to the East Wing we had a few Heartless to deal with, mainly Statue Knights, Hook Bats and Large Bodies but a few Soldiers and Shadows as well. It was quite easy to get rid of them but the Large Bodies were tougher since most of our attacks were deflected but we managed. Along with the stolen hearts disappearing into the air, the Heartless also dropped a heap of munny, Drive Orbs and Dark Shards which I picked up as quickly as I could.

Hey, we're on a journey and we need this stuff. Anyone will agree with me, so it's worth a little delay.

"Master!" The wardrobe gasped in surprise.

"Everybody's safe now." Donald explained.

"Wonderful! Thank you!" she thanked.

"Where is Belle?" The Beast asked seriously.

"Why, she left in a hurry. Something about going after this... man in black."

"WHAT!?" He roared in outrage. "Why doesn't she do what she's told?

"Temper, temper! Her spirit is what makes Belle so special."

"We'd better find her!"

"I'm warning you! You'll be sorry!"

"Belle! Where are you?"

"Beast! Help! I'm in the ballroom!" We headed up the stairs towards the ballroom, I was looking forward to fight this next boss but Goofy stopped me from entering.

_"Doesn't matter, I'll just step around him."_ I thought. So I made to go around him one way but he just followed my step so I tried the other way, same action. Goofy wagged a finger in front of me and said,

"Uh, uh, uh! You can't come in with us, Aimée." A brow was raised.

"Why?"

"You've been getting hurt a lot since we've been travelling to the other worlds and you look kinda tired. You should sit this one out." He explained. What? I wasn't tired, I was just as lively as these lot!

"I'm not tired! I can still..." my sentence was interrupted by a loud yawn. "...fight." Damn you, metabolism. Goofy guffawed,

"You see, you're getting sleepy." He tapped his finger on my nose, making me go momentarily cross-eyed. "Please, don't fight this time you're gonna get really hurt. You don't want something bad to happen to you, do you?" I pouted and turned away,

"No." There was no other response, just the opening and closing of the wooden doors. My gaze returned to the door and I scowled at it. I wish he didn't talk to me like that, I felt like I was being treated like a child. I've survived battles this far, I had a few moments where I was in **slight** danger, but other than that I'm still here. Aren't I? I crept up to the door and sneakily opened it to watch the fight from afar.

"Belle!" The Beast called.

"I'm all right!" Just as she shut the balcony door, a huge Heartless slammed into it, twitching insanely. It turned around with the chains wrapped around it's round body jingling. The shining blue aura around it flickering slowly, it roared as it floated upwards towards the chandelier. The dark being dove into the floor, a sea of darkness swept across and creeped up the pillars where it engulfed the painting on the ceiling, leaving nothing but the soft candle light for illumination. The darkness morphed the ballroom and gave it a new, awesome gothic look.

I watched the battle in amazement, watching a battle like this firsthand was like watching a movie. Except this wasn't special effects, stunts or CGI, it was very real, which makes it even better. The times when the Dark Ball would possess the chandelier were the main moments where the guys would be actually hit. But every time, the Heartless was forcefully ejected from the giant hanging light and got it's but kicked by the others. It would also seek shelter within the windows and columns but just like before would be forced out of its hiding spot.

A white glow emnated from Sora, his form floating in the air for a brief moment as Goofy disappeared in an orb of light. The shine on Sora faded and his normal clothes were transformed into his Valor Form, red sparks crackling around his two Keyblades as tiny red lights trailed behind like fireflies. He jumped into the air and expertly performing flips and spins whilst slashing the enemy with both weapons. The male brunette was surprisingly very acrobatic being able to do techniques like this. Halfway through the fight, I sneaked in but stayed close to the wall, no one ever spotted me.

After one more strike, the creature flaoted back dazed and twitching like mad. It bounced in midair before opening its jagged mouth wide enough to break the chains around it and allow darkness to envelop it.

_"It's about to transform. Two can play at that game."_

* * *

As soon as the first whisps of darkness flew out of it's mouth I took the moment to transform into a stronger form. I didn't bother with thinking through what kind of animal it was, it just had to be strong. I closed my eyes and imagined the beast in my mind, I focused all of my concentration on that animal. An image quickly came to my mind; a large creature with the body, forelimbs and hind legs of a lion, the head of an eagle, a pair of large bat ears on its head along with two '7' shaped horns sitting on top of its skull, a long python's tail and the entire body of the creature was grey like stone.

Not long after, my whole body began to tingle. At first it was like a prickly numbing feeling but it changed to pain, hot searing pain, every one of my muscles within my body tensed and it felt like my head was being tightly clamped with a vice. I hunched over as I felt my muscles spasm and writhe underneath my skin, making my pale flesh ripple like waves. The growls and screams that one should make in this situation were silenced by me tightening my throat and keeping my lips sealed, I shot my hands up to my head and held each side as if my skull threatened to fall off. The pain was so bad that it made my eyes tear up.

"What are you doing? I told you not to come in here, you're hurt!" Goofy scolded. I couldn't pay attention because of how much pain I was in.

"Are you okay?" Sora asked with concern. A hand places itself on my shoulder, I instantly slapped it away and retreated from it as if it were acid but I also did this due to my reclusive nature.

"I'm fine!" I growled. I collapsed to my hands and knees and scraped my nails against the reflective floor. I stared at my reflection in the floor and I could see for the first time my own transformation but through teary eyes. My nose, and upper and lower jaws began merging into a beak, teeth receding back into my jaw bones, my ears travelled up to the top of my head at a moderate pace, two lumps poked out of my skull, my nails lengthened and sharpened into claws and my skin was slowly turning ashen grey. My body ached as my bones were reshaping and muscles expanding, my claws ran across the ground scarring its surface with neat white lines from the pointed tips.

A strangled scream finally escaped from me as I grew bigger with each passing second. From one of my few quick glances up, I could tell that the boys were looking at me mortified from witnessing my drastic physical change. My became spiky and turned dark grey, loose bangs falling over my shoulders and actually joining to meet in the centre of my chest like a mane. The transformation was soon over as the features of the animal fully developed with my clothes once again disappearing leaving only my necklace, earring and ability ring behind. I panted from exhaustion, my head was swimming with dizziness as I regained the focus in my eyes. As I looked into the reflection in the floor I mentally declared,

_"I hereby name this form 'Gargoyle'."_ Just as I had finished my transformation, the Dark Thorn had finished its own. It burst out of the shadow sphere and roared, the roar seemed to cause the room to shake as the jingling of its shackles echoed throughout the ballroom and the reddish orange cape-like mane flowed behind it by some invisible wind. It slammed a clawed hand to the ground and hunched over preparing to charge at us. I jolted at the Heartless's second stage, my new form being more or less the same size as it. A feeling of dread washed over me, the innate reaction of fight or flight effectively taking hold.

_"What the Hell am I doing? I can't fight something like this, I'll hesitate and freeze up! Maybe I don't have to fight it directly, maybe I can just wear it- Crap!"_ The Dark Thorn rushed at us and the four below me attacked head on. I hesitated stepping in to join the fray but once it had it's back turned I took my chance to attack with my claws. However, the Heartless spotted me from the corner of it's pupilless eyes and swiped at me with it's long claws. My eyes widened and I dodged, only just managing to avoid having four inches of sharp nails slicing my face. They scraped my cheek but it didn't feel like it hurt, if anything it tickled and the sound of nails scratching against stone sounded in my ears.

_"That didn't hurt at all. My skin looks like it's made of stone, that'll explain why I didn't feel anything."_ I took a while to get the gears turning but my beak curved into a smirk. _"Which means this bastard can't hurt me."_ I thought cockily. Confidence built up inside me and I lunged at our enemy again, this time actually hitting my mark, deep purple lines trailed across the creature's chest from where my claws had it. It roared in pain and ran off towards the supporting pillars of the ballroom where it drove its fist into the floor and multiple little Possessors flew out, flying towards us. We swatted at the ghostly little Heartless but they kept gliding out the way. Annoying little pests.

Just as I was about to get rid of one a powerful force sent me flying into the pillars, my back hit, my body slightly bending backwards upon impact. My body rebounded of the rock and landed on the floor with a heavy thud. It didn't hurt as much as it would have in my original form but it still hurt a little bit.

"W... wh.. what?" I asked myself in confusion. I rolled on to my stomach and carefully got back to my feet, scanning the ballroom for whatever hit me. I saw nothing, not even the boss, just the others attacking wildly at the air. That's when I remembered this Heartless's special ability, it could turning invisible like the Stealth Sneak. This is starting to piss me off. I crouched into a pouncing stance as my eyes darted around searching for the Heartless. To my far left, I saw the faint silhouette creeping towards the group silently. Sora and the others were still unaware of what was coming for them. So I took action.

I broke into a mad dash with a war cry towards the invisible foe. It turned its head to face me and tried to leap into the air but I just managed to snag it by the ankle with my beak. I spun and tossed it at the windows, it hit hard against the glass but they never broke for some reason. Upon impact, the Dark Thorn returned to being visible and it shook its head as it stood.

"Good job Aimée, you found it!" Sora praised. I couldn't help but puff my chest out in pride and smiled at my accomplishment. A low growl brought our attention back to the denizen of darkness, it lowered its head and charged at us. Donald cast a Thunder spell, bringing a bolt of lightning down on the beast's head to temporarily stun it. Once it stopped moving, we took our chance to attack. Sora and the Beast attacked together using a combo technique while I unleash a barrage of furious swipes and a tail slam to send it a few feet back.

The Dark Thorn came back to its senses and roared in rage, charging at us once more but this time it seemed like it was in a berserk state. It swung the deadly claws on its hands to and fro, hoping to get one of us in its flurry. I attempted to slam a paw down its head but it saw this and jumped high in the air and on to my back. I screeched in shock then in irritation as it clawed at my back, my body shook and bucked trying to dislodge the Heartless and stop its assault. All this did was make it attack faster, and I was beginning to feel searing pain throughout my entire back like my flesh was being carved in to.

I clamped my beak shut and stopped myself from making any cry of pain, even if it did feel like I just got sliced with a knife, instead I just trapped the scream in my throat as I felt warm liquid beginning to run down my back. I finally managed to shake the big cretin off my back, hissing a bit as blood oozed out the wounds. I glanced at it and it looked satisfied with having drawn blood that was now dripping off the tips of its claws.

Sora struck the Heartless boss in it's side causing it to howl in agony, he tightened his grip on the Keyblade's handle and leapt up, reaving his weapon up along its chest and through its shoulder, a white light trailing behind. It staggered back, regaining its balance to clench its hands before giving one last roar before freezing. Light broke through the Heartless's skin in multiple places before disappearing in a soft, white flash.

"We did it!" Sora cheered. Donald and Goofy jumped into the air little while I just tipped my head back and smiled in victory.

"So you think." Our heads snapped around to find Xaldin standing in front of the ballroom doors. Beast charged at the Nobody, aiming to get revenge for turning him against his friends.

"Xaldin!"

"Farewell." He said as he teleported back to The World That Never Was before anyone could harm him. Beast clenched his fist in agitation and asked aloud,

"What does he want here?"

"He's with Organization XIII." I answered as I limped towards them, reverting back to my normal self, with my clothes materialising back. Sora nodded and turned to our ally.

"Ever heard of the Nobodies? When a strong-hearted person turns into a Heartless, a Nobody's created too." the brunette explained. The prince continued to listen intently about this new enemy. "See, the Organization...they've got control of all the Nobodies."

"That's right. And they were gonna make you into a Heartless. That way they could get that Nobody of yours and have control over it." Goofy added, his explanation making all the pieces click into place with Sora nodded feverently in agreement. A relieved female voice spoke out.

"You're all right!" Said Belle as she walked towards the centre. Beast ran to meet her in the middle, a glad smile plastered on his face. The clacking of metal, wood and porcelain rang, it was Lumiere, Cogsworth, Mrs. Pots and Chip coming to reunite with the lord of the castle and his love. Beast stared at Belle apologetically,

"Belle... I-I'm sorry- I wasn't myself. I hope I haven't done anything to hurt you." His tone in his apology was so sincere that anyone could recognise it. The grown woman gave him a smile and shook her head as to say 'No, you haven't hurt me'. "Forgive me."

"I know you weren't yourself. You don't have to apologise. But I had hoped...that you might have changed a little bit. I wish you could start trusting me." Her voice becoming more stern near the end of her sentence making the Beast cringe a little, hanging his head in shame and guilt. I had to laugh a little at the tiny amount of bickering, they already were acting like a couple.

"Oh, I'm afraid time is running short." Lumiere sighed almost hopelessly.

"What do you mean?" Sora asked in confusion.

"Remember the rose?"

"From the Beast's room?" Donald inquired.

"Precisely. You see, if the master can learn to love, and earn love in return, before the last petal falls..." Cogsworth explained, trailing off for Lumiere to finish his explanation.

"...the spell will be broken."

"Really? You think he's gonna make it?" Sora asked placing his wrists on his hips.

"Yeah, he'll make it. I know he will." I said to him, glancing at the two love interests once again.

"Yep, I think you're right." Goofy grinned.

"I HOPE you're right..." In a flash of white, the Keyblade appeared in Sora's hand

After sealing the keyhole to this world we were planning to leave straight after but I wanted to have a long rest so I had to show a bit of my stubbornness and refused to go anywhere without a goodnight's sleep first. Eventually he agreed. The Beast ordered his servants to show us to our rooms, when I arrived in mine I found the room to be quite large, it was decorated with fancy furniture and it had a few windows so I can see the courtyard.

_"I could get used to this..."_

"Is there anything you need, deary?" Mrs. Pots asked. I shook my head and politely declined, just wanting to fall into dreamland already. She bowed her head and hopped out the door with her son following behind her after giving me a curious stare. My hand pressed into the mattress to experimentally feel its texture and softness, and it felt to be very soft which made me give a small smile. After taking off my coat and trainers I slipped under the cool covers ready for a good night's kip.

A stinging sensation suddenly spread through my back while I was getting into my sleeping position and I winced from the pain.

_"Damn, that Dark Thorn's claws hurt. Now I know how our enemies felt when I scratched them up."_ I couldn't be bothered to cast Cure as I was worn out from the fight, I turned on to my sleeping side to try and ease the pain and slip into the comforting darkness. Heh, oh the irony in those words. Moments went by and I still couldn't drift off so I tried singing a soothing song in my head. That was doing the trick. I was slowly starting to lose consciousness as the sweet lyrics lulled me to sleep until I heard a warping sound a few feet away from me making me snap my eyes open. Multiple footsteps started hitting the ground as they got louder and closer towards me, I dared not to move in case it wasn't Axel or Demyx.

A finger poked the side of my face repeatedly, I was very slowly becoming annoyed by this but I still didn't move incase Demyx wasn't with Axel but with a completely different member of the Organization.

"Aimée, are you awake?" Demyx asked in a whisper. I said nothing, then I felt relief wash over me when I heard Axel speak.

"If she's not answering she's sleeping."

"I'm awake." I mumbled tiredly. Demyx jumped back from the sound of my voice as I propped myself up on my elbows, I closed my eyes for a moment as I rubbed them tiredly.

"I didn't wake you up did I?" Demyx asked slightly worried. I shook my head,

"No, I was just drifting. Ayeup, how've you been?"

"We've been okay, could be a bit better though." Axel replied.

"Anyway you promised to teach me some new songs!" Demyx exclaimed excitedly. Me and Axel had to reprimand and remind him that he had to be quiet. Knocking was heard at the door, the three of us froze but I kept a level head as I answered,

"Who is it?"

"It's Sora."

"What is it?" I asked.

"Are you okay in there? I heard voices." I just said the next thing off the top of my head,

"I was talking to myself, no worries!" There was silence for a moment before the brunette said,

"You're weird." I smirked and replied,

"And proud to be."

"Well.. I'm going to get some shut eye. Don't forget we gotta get to the next world as soon as possible, even if it means getting up early." The last part was with a more sullen tone. Looks like Sora's not an early riser. When his footsteps faded away I let out an irritated sigh, reason why I say irritated was because the Keybearer told me something I already knew and I hate it when people do that. As soon as we knew that 'the coast was clear', as the say, the ninth ranking Nobody grabbed my wrists and hurriedly pulled me through my bedroom doors with almost excitement on his face.

Demyx lead us to the castle's music room, how he knew where it was I don't know. He opened the door as quietly as he could and we stepped inside, it was a nice and quiet little room that held the same regality as everywhere else in the castle and it including a grand piano in one corner of the room. Before I could take anything else in, Demyx hauled me further into the room and pulled out two seats for us to sit on.

"O-Okay uh... w-what kind of songs do you want to learn?" I asked anxiously. Demyx placed a finger to his chin and looked up in deep thought before smiling at me.

"Any kind that you know." He beamed. I thought of which songs to teach him, there were quite a few but honestly a lot were either Disney songs or rock music, and a few from video games. But I doubt that he'll mind. So I taught him Simple and Clean, Sanctuary, Kyoutenka and Always There (from The Land Before Time). He seemed happy to have learned new songs, he said he's been running out of things to sing anyway. I'd liked to have talked with them more but unfortunately I had to go to sleep.

"I've kept my side of the deal, now keep yours." I told the musician. His expression changed from happiness to sullen and whined,

"Do I have to? I could get in trouble with X-face for this." I frowned in confusion.

_"'X-face'? Who the Hell is tha- oooh! He must mean Saix. Heh, love the nickname for him."_ I mused. Pushing my amusement aside I gave Demyx a hard stare.

"Demyx." My tone stern and subtly hinting to warn him not to go backing out on me or feel my wrath. He looked to Axel, the redhead gave him the same look with his arms crossed and sat straight to make himself appear more authoritative. If my unwavering stare wasn't enough then Axel's was as the blonde sighed in defeat. The Melodious Nocturne faced me with a now emotionless expression that didn't suit him at all, it made him look like the heartless being he really was. "What have you found out?"

"Well, Xemnas is sending all the Nobodies to look for you so they can bring you back to our HQ."

"Tell me something I don't know." I said grumpily, becoming irritated from lack of sleep.

"O-Okay... I heard him talk about something to make the Keeper unleash her hidden powers." Demyx informed. Now this was something new. Xemnas planning to unleash my 'hidden powers'? What the Hell is he planning now? "Annnd that's about it. I would've gotten more info but I ran away since I nearly got caught snooping." He said scratching the back of his head.

"So nothing else to tell me?" I questioned. He shook his head and I sighed, finally thinking that I can go to bed. My eyelids are already forcing themselves to shut. The pyromancer saw this and moved to stand.

"We gotta get going too or else the boss is gonna chew us out." Axel said getting up from his seat. He opened a Corridor of Darkness and waited for Demyx to move as well. The dirty blonde haired teen waved goodbye and stepped hurriedly through the portal. Axel looked at me one more time before wishing me good luck and telling me to get my injuries fixed, then giving me his own little salute. With that, the portal vanished. ...Great, now all that singing got me in the mood to sing one last song before bed so I went to the ballroom to do just that.

* * *

A quick check to make sure no one else was in the same room. Nope. No one except me and the candlelight. I sauntered towards the centre singing a song from this world.

"Tale as old as time,

True as it can be,

Barely even friends,

Then somebody bends unexpectedly.

Just a little change,

Small to say the least,

Both a little scared,

Neither one prepared,

Beauty and the Beast.

Ever just the same,

Ever as surprised,

Ever as before,

Ever just as sure,

As the sun will rise."

As I sung the lyrics I idly paced around the ballroom and doing little twirls every now and then. I even started imagining Belle and the Beast dancing in here, Hell, I even imagined Sora and Kairi dancing in this room. They make such a cute couple.

"Tale as old as time,

Tune as old as song.

Bittersweet and strange,

Finding you can change,

Learning you were wrong.

Certain as the sun,

Rising in the east,

Tale as old as time,

Song as old as rhyme,

Beauty and the Beast.

Tale as old as time,

Song as old as rhyme,

Beauty and the Beast."

As I came to the end of the song, I gazed up at the painting of angels on the ceiling. It was beautiful, the little cherubs smiling down on the entire ballroom and peeking out from behind the clouds. Whoever did this piece of artwork should be jolly well proud of themselves.

Warping sounds drifted into my ears, I turned on my heel to face a swirling black, purple and very dark blue portal. A tall man wearing the Organization's cloak walked through, I backed up a bit to create some distance between us in case it was Xaldin since he's the only one out of the surviving members who has this kind of muscle size. Lexaeus is gone so it's definitely not him.

"Who are you?" I questioned. The man didn't answer at first but after a moment of silence he spoke,

"It doesn't matter to you who I am. What I want to know is who you are." Rude much? I quickly shook my head and blinked as I recalled this exact moment I had in my sleep.

_"Whoa, another dream vision come true."_ I also recognised the voice, it sounded like Ansem (the Heartless not the Somebody). Knowing that Sora defeated Ansem long ago, I knew that this had to be Riku in disguise. I swallowed nervously and stepped back a bit hunched over in defense, staring into his shadowed eyes. After a few moments of silence Riku demanded again this time in annoyance.

"Tell me who you are." I frowned at his tone but more so in my own annoyance at his persistence.

"N-No." I answered, not sounding very stern with my stutter. He piercing gaze didn't falter when I denied him of his wanted answer, if anything he just seemed to smirk at me. I shivered a little and looked away,

_"Crap, he knows he's intimidating me. The last thing I need is someone who's stronger and bigger than me forcing me to answer questions, even if he is Sora's best friend."_ I was so wrapped up in my thoughts that I didn't even notice him moving forwards.

"You don't sound very confident for someone who's come this far." He said coolly. It took a short while for my brain to register his voice's increase in volume.

_"What the. . . ? Hang about!"_ I looked up and came face to very tanned face with Riku.

His sudden closeness made me give a surprised yelp and made me jump back, however, as I did a puff of black and purple smoke exploded around me making a small 'poof' sound, like the one you hear in Fruits Basket. Riku's eyes widened slightly in surprise, as soon as the smoke cleared all he could see was a puddle of my clothes and a big lump in the middle of them. I squirmed making the clothing move, attempting to find my way out of the materials that trapped me.

After a bit of jostling I managed to throw my cloak off from over my head, I squinted my eyes at the sudden brightness as my eyes adjusted from the darkness. I did a double take when I found that the male before me was now three times my height. I looked down at my hands to discover that they now only had two fingers and a thumb on each one and they were as white as the snow. Shock graced my face, or rather my blue eyes, as I stared into the polished floor. I had turned into a Shadow Heartless, except my skin was entirely white, my antennae were curlier at the ends and I kept my blue eyes, my Heartless earring on my right antenna and my heart necklace was still about my neck. I also noticed that my clothes were now a puddle around me.

Seeing as I was too entranced by my new image, Riku thought of this as a good time to pick me up, but not in the best way. He grabbed my antennas in one hand and hoisted me off the ground. I gave a muffled grunt and held on to his fist while I pulled my self up a bit.

_"Oh gods, this hurts!"_ I mentally growled. It hurt as much as someone grabbing a fistful of hair really tight and pulling to make you stand up.

"So you're a Heartless?" he questioned with a glare. I shook my head as a response but all that did was make the pain increase a bit.

"No, I'm like this because of my powers. Didn't DiZ tell you?" I said calmly. Riku's glare hardened and he brought me closer to his face.

"How do you know DiZ?"

"Met him in the virtual Twilight Town." I explained, pain slightly lacing each of my words. "Now let go, you're gonna tear them off!" I whined desperately digging my claws into his hand. He grunted, pulled away and let go of my antennae but I kept a strong grip on his hand and fingers so I didn't fall to the floor like I certain Nobody friend of mine did to me many hours ago. He shook his hand to and fro, trying to make me lose my hold, and he succeeded as I lost my grip on him and landed on the cold reflective floor. Thank the gods I landed on my hands and feet instead of my rear.

"Idiot." I muttered quietly.

"What did you say?" Riku questioned.

"Nothing." I answered innocently. Didn't want to tell him what I just said for fear of getting my teeth kicked in.

I felt a tingling sensation all over my body and another poof of dark smoke burst around me. As the smoke started to clear I looked down at myself and I could just about make out the outline of my human hands. That's good, I'm back to normal. But something didn't seem right, I felt cold. I looked up and found Riku staring at me and I swear I could see a slight blush across his face. I looked back down and saw why, as the smoke cleared I realised that I was in my birthday suit. I covered what I could with my arms and hands as I sucked in a sharp gasp.

"Turn around! Turn around!" I ordered frantically. He did so and as soon as he turned his back on me I began to clothe myself as quickly as I could. My face was burning from embarrassment, as I dressed I was ranting in my mind,

_"Why did this happen to me? This is so embarrassing, for the gods' sake why did I have to turn back in a Fruits Basket way? Naked and in front of Riku of all people! He's probably trying to rid his mind of my ugly body." __**(Self-consciousness) "Oi! Who do you think you are talking about your body like that?"**__ "The owner of this body." __**"Don't get smart with me! Listen, you've got to stop thinking negatively about your appearance."**__ "Like you're one to talk, you're my self-consciousness you control how I think of my appearance so don't try to give me any cheering up speech when you also think my body's bad." __**"...You're right, I don't know why I said all that." (Anger) "'Cause you're a fucking idiot." (SC) "No, Idiocy's over there."**_SC pointed over to the corner of my mind house where a rather small aspect of me is sticking her tongue into a plug socket with a goofy grin on her face. A scream erupted, buzzing and a bright flashing light filled one of the rooms in my mind, all of parts of my personality stopped what they were doing to stare at Idiocy in boredom as she was being electrocuted. Ah, just an average day in the inside of my mind.

Now all I had to do was put my shirt on and pick up my coat then I can go back to bed. As I was halfway pulling my top down, Riku suddenly asked,

"How'd you get those scratches?" I stopped my action and stood in silence for a very brief moment then answered simply,

"Heartless boss." I wondered why he was looking even though I told him not to, I just shrugged it off and continued what I was doing. Before I was able to pull the rest of my top down I felt a hand grab the rim of my t-shirt, another hand placed the flat of its palm on my wound, even though it was gloved I could feel warmth pulsing from it mixing with the stinging feeling. My first reaction was to run out of his reach but that didn't work since he had a tight grip on my shirt. I hissed through my teeth and scrunched my face a little at the pressure on my injury then a cool sensation spread throughout the sore area of my back, it sent a chill up my spine. I twitched at the temperature change and ended up letting go of my hold on my shirt,

"Cold!" I whispered, maybe a little too loudly as Riku scoffed at my reaction. A few seconds later the relaxing coolness overtook the feeling of pain as I felt my skin tingle. Soon after that, the cold went away as well as Riku's hand and he pulled the lower half of my top back down.

"Di.. did you just use Cure?" I asked despite knowing that he did. The silver head replied sarcastically,

"Well I didn't use Blizzard, did I?" Smart-arse. I closed my eyes, smiled and shook my head at his sarcasm. I faced him and asked curiously,

"What're you doing here anyway?" Orange eyes flashed in the soft chandelier light as he tilted his head back a little.

"That's for me to know and you to find out." I blinked and we stood there in silence, me a little uncomfortable under his gaze. I let out a tired yawn, covering my mouth with my hand as a long installed reaction. I glanced at him lazily,

"I'm off. Before I go up the apples and pears I'm gonna go make myself a cheese sarni." I told him as I rubbed my hands together at the thought of my lunch. I started to walk towards the doors in my goal to find the kitchen.

"You never did tell me your name." I told him as I looked over my shoulder.

". . . Riku." He said after a moment of silence. I turned to face him one last time and bade,

"Well, Riku it was nice meeting you and now I bid you adieu." I smiled lightly before facing the double doors and walking towards the exit. I stopped at the door and finally answered his earlier question. "My name's Aimée, by the way." With that, I left.

* * *

As she left the ballroom Riku stared at the doors with a slightly confused look on his face.

"'Apples and pears'? 'Sarni'?" He repeated her words, pondering on their meanings. Then he started to ponder on why the Organization would be after someone like her, she didn't appear to be that special, she didn't look like the salvation of the Nobodies. In fact he thought she looked weak, frail and sickly, maybe even a bit young to be dealing with threats like this. Like he could talk though, he dabbled in the darkness when he was just fifteen and his best friend was fighting real enemies at fourteen but they were actually prepared due to all their practice battles on their home world.

He then remembered DiZ's words.

_'You shouldn't judge a book by it's cover.'_ The older man was right, the girl may look vulnerable but she could have more strength than she lets on. Even more of a reason to keep an eye on her, and to check that Sora was still okay.

He created a Corridor of Darkness to the computer room in the Haunted Mansion. Before he stepped into it he said aloud, "Well she is different, I'll give her that." He stared at the spot where the female brunette had stood with fervor, "I'll be seeing you soon, Aimée." Then he entered the dark abyss, back to his and DiZ's hideout.

* * *

_Fun Fact: Aimée frequently has premonition dreams, practically two or three every few days and they do happen in real life sooner or later but she doesn't remember them until they happen._

* * *

**OMAKE: **Riku was sitting in a corner of the computer room within the basement of the haunted mansion reading, no, searching for something in one of the many books in the library. DiZ soon enters the room and looks at the teen's disguised form curiously.

"What are you reading, Riku?" DiZ asked.

"A phrase book." he answered simply, still buried in his book. The bandaged man took a few steps closer to look over the cloaked teen's shoulder and had a gander at what Riku was reading. He was reading through the 'S' column, scanning through the words and their meanings.

"What is it you're looking for?" DiZ inquired.

"It's none of your concern." Was his reply. DiZ chuckled half heartedly and moved away from Riku and towards the exit. A few moments later, the bandaged man came back with a new book in his hand and he held it out to the silver-haired male.

"Try this one." DiZ said as he handed him the book. On the cover read the title 'British Phrases and Idioms'. Riku looked from the book to DiZ, took it from his hand and began to flip through the pages. The bandaged man turned on his heel towards the computers and muttered, "Not even a 'thank you'."

* * *

**I would just like to point out that I know it's not always cold and raining over here in Britain and we do have hot summers but earlier this year we hardly had any sunny days, it's been mainly thunderstorms and a bit flooding in some places and we literally had only like one month of sunshine. :P**

**I'm gonna try my best to update quicker, so I thank those of you who are still reading my story and I'd like to thank moonofwitch for adding Keeper of Hearts to your favourites. ^_^**


	16. The Sun and the Moon

Chapter 16: The Sun and the Moon

**Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts or its characters, I only own my OCs and my made-up Heartless'.**

**Alright! I got the complete series of Hetalia Axis Powers and World Series, my Nana and Papa are awesome! :D I wanted to post this on Christmas Eve but presents have kept more occupied as well as my new addiction to Happy Tree Friends. Here's my (very late) 2013 present to you, my readers, this chapter and there's... A PLOT TWIST!**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

One eye open. Other eye open. My grey-blue orbs shifting around in the very dimly lit room with grogginess. I raised myself on my elbows and looked at the window where the sky was a dark blue. Sunrise would be arriving in a few hours or so and I really.. couldn't give a flying toss. Balling my hand into a fist, I rubbed my eyes to clear the sand out of the corners and to get a clearer look at my surroundings. For a split second I had no idea where I was since this wasn't my normal bedroom but I remembered that I was still in Beast's Castle.

My feet touched the carpeted floor as I sat on the edge of my bed, blinking slowly to rid of the drowsiness. My mind was blank as it normally is first thing in the morning, my eyes scanned the room after a brief panic.

_"Where are my-? Oh there they are." _False alarm. My clothes were on top of the drawers near the wall with my trainers at the feet. Heh heh, get it? Trainers? Feet? Feet of the drawers? Heh. . . Don't worry if you don't laugh at my humor, I'm not the joke-teller kind of person. I made my way to the door and poked my head out, looking down both ends of the corridor. It was almost pitch black save for the miniscule amount of light peering in from the night sky.

I dragged myself to Sora's room, might as well see if he's up yet. I quietly pulled down the handle and crept in. The darkness wasn't a problem for me since my eyes gradually adjusted to the low light, allowing me to see into my neighbour's room. His room was basically like mine except most of his clothes were scattered about on the floor. I quietly walked closer and could see that Sora was sleeping like a baby. The only pieces of clothing he had on were his black vest-top and a pair of boxers, both arms beside his head bent at an angle and a leg propped up on top of kicked off covers. I did have to admit that with that peaceful expression on his face he did look rather adorable.

I glanced at his spiky hair and temptation was back. My eyes shifted repeatedly from my friend to his spikes, I wanted to feel the texture again after last time. I knelt at his bedside and carefully reached for his hair. Even his spikes were really soft and it was nice to feel them between my fingers, it made me wonder how his locks could naturally feel like this and not have any hair gel in it. Sora fidgeted a little,

"Ngh.. Mom, cut it out I wanna sleep some more.." Sora muttered in his sleep, unconsciously using an arm to try and push me away. Little good that did since he was hardly using any energy. A smirk appeared on my face, now I had a new way of messing with him. I leaned into his ear and said quietly,

"C'mon Sora, you need to get up for school." I looked up to his face to watch his reaction; his face contorted into a look between disappointment and a pout, he whined while turning his back on me.

"Don't wanna go to school.. 's boring.." A wider grin spread across my face and I had to hold in my laughter.

"Okay, one more time then I'm going back to bed."

And I know just what to say,

"Sora, you lazy bum! I knew I'd find you snoozing here." Once again looking up to his the reaction. There was nothing for a moment but a happy smiled crawled on to his face along with a small blush on his cheeks, he chuckled bashfully while muttering "Kairi". After that he never said a word, just laid there with the content smile as he dreamed. A breathless chuckled escaped me, the first time I've ever manipulated someone's dream for laughs and it was a success.

"Alright, I better get back to my room. It's gonna be a long day today and I need as much sleep as I can."

I thought to myself. I got up and turned to walk back out the door when a sudden breeze washed over me. I shivered a little from the chilly contact and turned to the window to see that it had been left open. Maybe he opened earlier because he felt too hot. Seeing as he was off in the Land of Nod it wasn't necessary for the window to be open anymore, so I went over and closed it then went back to the door. But something else stopped me.

_"It's still a bit cold in here. Hn.. I should probably put the quilt back over him. We can't have the Keybearer fighting if he gets sick."_ So I went back to my friend's bed and pulled the dark blue quilt back over his form whilst he was in a curled up position. Looking down at his clothes on the floor, I 'tched' and began picking up his clothing, neatly folding them and placing them on top of his drawer set and his shoes at the bottom.

With all that sorted I left the room and shut the door with a quiet click. As I glanced around the dark corridors it dawned on me - I won't be able to sleep now, all that mucking around made me wide awake. Man, I'm gonna be knackered later. I might as well do something to entertain myself.. or maybe I should practice my skills. Yeah. . I think I'll do the latter. Just as I was about to finally go back to my room to get dressed my belly growled.

". . . After some breakfast." I muttered to myself, heading for the kitchen. Wherever that was.

* * *

"WAKE UP!" A loud voice yelled, the owner jumping on top of a sleeping figure. Said figure woke with a start and looked around frantically as if someone was attacking. When he saw a familiar white duck sitting on his stomach he instantly had a frown on his face.

"Donald! Why'd you have to do that for?" He questioned with a grumpy tone while propping up on his elbows. Donald slid off the bed to stand next to Goofy.

"I had to, you wouldn't wake up. We've got to be heading out soon, the faster we find the King the better." he explained. Goofy nodded and added,

"Yep and when we find the King, Riku will be with him. Then they can help us beat Organization XIII." It didn't take long for Sora to think over their words and agree with them. The sooner they found their friends the sooner they could go back to their respective home worlds.

"Alright, I'm up." Sora sat up and rubbed his sleepy eyes, Donald and Goofy took this as their cue to leave. Just as they disappeared around the door frame, the duck popped his head back to say,

"And don't forget to wake up Aimée." Then he was gone once again. The teen stretched his arms and back before throwing the covers off to get dressed.

_"Why can't Donald or Goofy wake her up? They're already dressed so it makes more sense for them to get her while I wake up more."_

Sora complained in his head. He dragged himself to the bathroom to do his business, brush his teeth and have a wash. Five minutes later he exited the bathroom and he was starting to feel refreshed, still groggy, but refreshed nonetheless. He opened an eye expecting to see his other clothing still on the floor, but there was nothing. Fully opening both eyes in confusion, he glanced around the room wondering where his stuff went. Sora calmed down when he found them on top of the dresser, he picked them up and wondered aloud,

"That's weird. I coulda sworn I left 'em on the floor, so who picked 'em up?" He brushed it off as one of the servants cleaning his room while he slept. But he did go to sleep pretty late so who else could've been up at that time? As he got dressed he started noticing other things that changed while he was asleep. For one, the window was closed when he was sure he left it open last night, and he had kicked the covers off because he wanted to cool down but they were covering him when he woke up. "Oh well, it's nothing important."

After sliding his shoes on he left his room and walked next door to Aimée's, he knocked,

"Aimée, you still asleep? We gotta be going to the next world soon." Sora asked through the door, there was no reply. He knocked and called her name again but still no answer. Maybe she was still asleep, it's still pretty early. "I'm coming in." He called to other side of the door to alert her. He pulled the handle and opened the door expecting to see her still snoozing or at least walking around. But there was no one. At all. There was no sight of any of her belongings and the bed was neatly made like it had never been touched.

_"Maybe she's already up?"_

Sora's mind spoke. He stayed in the room similar to the one he'd slept in for a few moments to have a brief look around before deciding to go down to the entrance hall. He stopped short of exiting when he felt something. Like the feeling of.. being watched. He raised his hand in front of him so he could readily summon the Keyblade as he cautiously looked behind him. There was nothing.

With a relieved sigh, Sora relaxed seeing as there was no apparent danger. He closed his eyelids as a small smile appeared thinking that he was still a little groggy so his mind was playing tricks on him. That is until he opened his eyes again.

Staring at him from outside the window was a huge blue eye surrounded by brown, reptilian scales with a black hole near the eye. The giant creature blinked and the pupil narrowed at the teenager. The brunette's eyes widened, his two parts of his brain telling him to scream and not to scream out of fear of triggering an attack, and the latter part was winning. He brought his balled fists up to his face and rubbed his eyes to make sure he was really seeing what was there. When he looked again, for a second time there was nothing in the window.

_"Where did it go? It was right there I wasn't hallucinating! Was I..?"_

His thoughts were interrupted by his stomach grumbling. He placed a hand to his belly and said,

"Heh heh, that's what's wrong with me. I'm just hungry! I'll probably think straight after I've had breakfast." He locked the door behind him and made his way downstairs to get some food.

* * *

"Morning." I greeted readily. Sora, Donald and Goofy looked at me when they heard my greeting and saw that I was eating my breakfast, boiled eggs and soldiers. My only decent breakfast since I got here.

"How long have you been up?" Donald asked absent-mindedly. I say that because he was a little preoccupied with staring at my breakfast with drool leaking from his beak.

"Since half four." Paying no mind to his hungry look. I took one of my bread soldiers, dipped it into the still runny, orange yolk and took a bite. A small smile appeared on my face, taking delight in the taste of a simple meal. Something white appeared out the corner of my eye so I glanced to find that it was a feathered hand reaching for one of my bread slices.

Immediately it got a slap on the back causing Donald to quack in surprise. I shielded my food with my arms and growled at Donald with a frown.

"Get your own soldiers." I told him. I proceeded to quickly scarf the rest of my breakfast before another thief attempt could be tried. I may have looked like a chipmunk storing food at that moment but I didn't care as I was heading towards the kitchen to put my pots on the side.

After swallowing the last of my breakfast, I walked out the kitchen to find some of the servants were tending to the boys, bringing them, what I assumed to be, breakfast on silver platters. I took a seat opposite my friends and stared into space while they ate.

After finishing up breakfast and exchanging farewells, our little group exited the castle and headed for the Gummi. The early morning sun shone down on us, warm rays showering us against the light breeze.

Now that it was light out we could see just how damaged the Gummi ship was after making our way through those Gummi Heartless and Nobodies. It was in an absolute state. There were black scorch marks everywhere, the cockpit window had a large crack in it and the wings were bent in some places. As if sensing us approach, the ship opened up a platform for us so we could board. Once we had fastened ourselves in, Donald was about to start up the ship when it started moving on its own.

Goofy glanced around confused as the Gummi moved by itself.

"Huh?"

"Hey, wait a minute... is the ship moving all on its own?" Sora asked.

"Yup! Looks like we're headed toward Hollow Bastion." Oh yeah, forgot we had to go back to Hollow Bastion between exploring new worlds. What for though? . . . . Oh well, I'll remember when we get there. Minutes of complete silence passed, the tranquility and hum of the ship soothed me while I rested my chin on my open palm.

"Say, Aimée," Sora spoke, breaking the silence.

"Yeah?" I answered.

"What were you doing up so early anyway?" A simple question so a simple answer was needed.

"Practicing my transformations."

"Really?"

"Mmhm."

"So how exactly have you been practicing?" I stared at the ceiling for a moment, thinking of how to explain it to him.

"I've been.. turning into animals like bears, horses, deers and running throughout the forest so I could get used to running and dodging in four-legged forms. I've made combo techniques, getting used to insect forms and let me tell you, walking with more than two or four legs is a lot harder than it looks. And I've tried to improve my transformation speed from one form to another." Taking a deep breath after finishing my explanation. All three were looking at me with surprised expressions. Goofy was the first to comment.

"Gawrsh, sounds like you've been trainin' real hard."

"That's good, it means you'll be stronger when we fight the Heartless and the Organization." Donald added, praising my work.

My mind brought me back to what I did in the earlier hours before we left Beast's Castle.

"By the way, Sora, if you were wondering who made all those changes to your room earlier, it was me." The brunette

"Why did you do all that?"

"You shouldn't be messy and we can't have you catching a cold when you have worlds to save can we?"

"I guess you're right."

Seeing as I had nothing else to say, I just stared out the window. Taking in the sight of the stars and shifting auroras as we continued our flight to Hollow Bastion. The sight of what was outside was simply.. ethereal, like something you could only see in your most peaceful dreams. My friends' talking was muffled as I blocked it out, preferring the silence of my own company and the serenity of the scenery.

* * *

"I wonder what's up." Sora wondered as we rounded a corner. We came to Merlin's house and saw a trio of Soldier Heartless come running out and disappearing in orbs of darkness. "C'mon!"

We entered the home to find that it was in complete disarray. Books were scattered about in large piles leaving their shelves almost bare, there were also some scratch marks on the ground from an apparent fight. In the middle of it all was Merlin sitting on the ground with a disoriented look.

"Well, now... took your time, did you?"

"Oh, was it you who summoned us, Merlin?"

"Yes, yes... But it seems I used too much power in doing so, and those infernal Heartless..."

"So, what's up?"

"Well, I happened to stumble across this in the Zero District." Merlin held out one of his hands and a large book appeared from a puff of smoke, it had a strap lock on the front and a picture with the words 'Winnie the Pooh' written at the top. Sora's face seemed to brighten with excitement and recognition.

"Pooh's storybook!"

"That's right. I know you're a good friend of Winnie the Pooh, Sora- that's why I summoned you. And when I did I was attacked by the Heartless." Merlin explained, recounting his fight with the Soldiers. "Of course, I fought back with some rather powerful magic, but then I began to fear the book would be damaged, so I..." "Now, just a moment. Leon and the others need to hear this too. I-I'd better go find them. Be back in a jiffy." In a poof of smoke he vanished.

"I wonder how Pooh's doing." Sora thought aloud, recounting memories with Pooh and his friends from the previous year.

"Wanna find out?"

"Yeah!" He exclaimed excitedly. He took up a stance to brace himself for transporting into the book.

"Sora..."

"Cover for me, okay?" Donald held the open book at him and a pulsating white flare shone from within its pages.

I had to turn my head away from the light so I didn't become temporarily blinded. When I turned back, I saw a very tiny Sora gently floating down on to its pages. I stared in child-like wonder as our now miniature friend wandered across the map of the Hundred Acre Wood to a pop-up of Pooh's house.

While Sora was in the book, having a little exploration of Hollow Bastion seemed like a good idea.

I told Donald and Goofy that I was going out for a little walk around Hollow Bastion, to which they nodded. Donald was reluctant about me leaving in case they needed help defending the storybook if the Heartless showed up again. I said they'd be fine since they've been fighting the Heartless longer than I have. That being said, I walked away from them and Merlin's home.

During my walk, I thought back to how I felt about Disney when I was a child. To put it in the simplest way, Disney was the most magical thing I could've ever experienced. The beauty of the films, not to mention the songs and characters themselves, were amazing, truly artworks in themselves. And the emotions felt left their marks on me that will last forever. Now that I was actually here interacting with the real people, it.. it was just an ecstatic feeling. The characters had their same personalities as portrayed in the films as well as their home worlds, but it's more serious here with the additions of the Heartless and the Organization.

Nevertheless, I'm actually enjoying my time here. I stared at the sky with a calm smile on my face.

Two screams pierced the silent air, my head turning on reflex to where I thought the source was, which wasn't very far. It was actually quite close. At first I thought nothing of it and was about to carry on with my exploring but something in the back of my head nagged at me to see who was making such a racket. I ran in the direction of where the sound came from, my head turning every which way since I couldn't exactly pinpoint the source. Another scream ringed, louder than before as well as being accompanied by the sound of metallic clanking.

_"Soldiers." _Was my immediate deduction. The sounds came from my right where I caught a brief flicker of dark blue and purple disappear behind it. I cautiously and quickly went to the corner and my thought was confirmed, Heartless, and they were crowding around something. I leaned closer from around the corner to see exactly what these Heartless were chasing, when I realised that there were two small figures cowering against the dead end, I stopped breathing.

Children.

_"Hell no." _Taking the initiative, I charged at the group with my arms changed into bear paws and went all out on them. With a swipe of my hand, a Soldier's helmet was left with a huge dent as it went crashing into the purple brick walls. Before the rest could react, I attacked them in the same manner so that I can get between them and these kids. C'mon you little bastards, just try and hurt them now.

The group was struggling to get back up, some trembling as they held their weight on their arms while others could barely sit up. Just one stared at me in the eyes for a few moments before disappearing in an orb of darkness. My glare lessened in confusion. _"What the..?"_ It seemed like the rest thought it was a good idea too, and each disappeared one by one.

"That was strange."

It was weird that they gave up that quick, and I don't think it's because they feared me. Far from that, they don't know the word 'fear' they just keep attacking until they die or unless someone orders them to retreat. Could the Organization be here? I glanced up at the top ledges of the walls and platforms but found no one. Well, at least the coast is, as they say, clear... for now anyway. Tingling surged through my hands as they reverted back to their normal appearance, my fingers flexing with small clicks from the bones.

Turning on my heel, I returned to the two children who were still cowering with their arms covering their heads and faces as protection.

"Oi, the Heartless are gone, you to can stop cowering." I said lowly with a slightly agitated tone. The twosome slowly lowered their arms and cautiously looked up at me. Now that I had a better look at them I could properly make out their features.

The first boy had shoulder-length blonde hair that was a little spiked at the back with shorter locks of hair covering his forehead as a fringe. His eyes were a dark orange colour, vermilion one can say, his face was round and had a light tan on his skin. He wore a simple red t-shirt with a black sun in the centre and a ring around it. The shirt was a little big for his size so the collar slipped, revealing the skin of his right shoulder and collarbone. He wore a pair of black denim shorts reaching just above the knees and a pair of white trainers with red laces.

The little girl had flowing, mid back-length black hair with a few curls sticking out here and there, her eyes were a very pale purple- almost white, and like the boy, her face was round but had a little more baby fat and her skin was fair. She wore a simple dark blue, short-sleeve dress that reached halfway to her knees with a white frill underneath the hem as well as printed silver stars around the front, a simple white gem hung around her neck on a thin black string and a pair of white plimsolls covered her feet.

They looked like a little sun and moon, respectively. As cute as they were, I didn't want to be around them for very long so my immediate objective was to get them back to their parents as soon as possible.

"Do you know where your mums are?" I questioned bluntly. They looked at each other then looked at me before breaking down in tears. I twitched and took a step back.

"Aw flipping 'eck, what did I do!?"

There are a lot of things I can't stand, and one of the top ones is crying kids. A panicked look crossed my face, my eyes darting about frantically for any other human being who could handle this instead of me. There was no one. I had to deal with this myself but I didn't want to! I can't handle children, let alone crying ones! My body tensed as I paced back and forth, grinding my teeth as their cries began to give me a headache. I took a deep breath to shout at them to stop but bit my tongue to stop the order.

_"__**(Reason) No, don't do it, they can't help it.**__ I suppose you're right."_

I mentally reasoned. Taking a deep breath in then out to calm myself.

"Soz. I... It doesn't matter. You do-don't have to tell me if you don't want to." I said as gently as I could.

"What're your names?" I asked.

"M-My name's Taiyou." The blonde boy sniffled. I nodded, shifting my eyes to the little girl and expecting her to do the same. It took a moment for her to answer as a heavy blush appeared on her cheeks and she lowered her head, her tiny fists clenching the front of her dress.

"..Ts-Tsuki..." She said shyly.

"Hn." I grunted in acknowledgement.

I scratched my head puzzled on what I should do now. I couldn't leave them there with Heartless and Nobodies running around, they're far too vulnerable and I couldn't go off to find their mums since it seemed like something bad's happened to them. A possibility came to me,

"Heartless."

Could the Heartless that attacked them be the ones who attacked their mothers? If so, where are their dads? Or did they all have their hearts stolen? My mind didn't ponder on it for very long and brushed their fates aside, more bothered about what to do with these two. After a few silent moments of thinking I decided to bring them back with me to my friends.

"I just know I'm gonna regret this somehow."

I sighed and cast my gaze to the side while holding a hand out to them.

"Come on, you two can come with me. You'll be safe with me and my friends." I said begrudgingly. Almost instantly, I felt a pair of small arms wrap around my outstretched arm and another pair around the other. My whole body immediately tensed and tried to pull my arms back but the two kids had very tight grips. I breathed a deep, exasperated sigh, already feeling serious stress rising high. "Let's go." Sighing heavily, I began walking back the way I came with the twosome in tow. I attempted a few times to make them let go of my arms, even sharply turning a corner and pulling but no matter what they wouldn't let go. On the way back I couldn't help but sing this song, finding it amusingly appropriate and needing something to help calm my stress.

"Deep in the Hundred Acre Wood,

Where Christopher Robin plays,

You'll find the enchanted neighborhood,

Of Christopher's childhood days.

A donkey named Eeyore is his friend,

And Kanga and Little Roo.

There's Rabbit... and Piglet,

And there's Owl,

But most of all, Winnie the Pooh.

Winnie the Pooh,

Winnie the Pooh,

Chubby little cubby all stuffed with fluff,

He's Winnie the Pooh,

Winnie the Pooh,

Willy, nilly, silly old bear~

Winnie the Pooh,

Winnie the Pooh,

Chubby little cubby all stuffed with fluff,

He's Winnie the Pooh,

Winnie the Pooh,

Willy, nilly, silly old bear~"

I heard giggling behind me so I slowed my pace and turned slightly to see Taiyou and Tsuki hopping from one foot to the other while humming Winnie's song. The corner of my mouth twitched watching the boy and girl enjoying the song. At least they seemed to have cheered up a bit.

I arrived back just in time to see my friends finishing off a small group of Soldiers, with one of them dropping Pooh's storybook. Upon seeing my friends, the kids hurriedly grabbed on to the back of my cloak and brought themselves closer to my being. I gave a small side glance at them but sighed in annoyance. I approached the trio of males with a short call to let them know that I'd returned.

"Thanks for the help, Aimée." Donald huffed sarcastically with his arms crossed. Frowning, I talked back to him.

"Oi, don't even start on me! I would've helped you but I had my own problems to deal with." Pointing a finger behind me to where the two children were still clinging to my cloak like a lifeline.

"Hey there!" Sora greeted cheerfully with his usual happy grin. As a response, the boy and girl hid their faces in my cloak.

"Hn. Shy little buggers."

I commented. Donald walked around me to get a closer look at them, Taiyou was the first to look up only to come face to face with my duck friend. His reaction was hilarious; Taiyou's eyes widened, he let out a short scream and smacked Donald on the beak before he and the black haired girl took to hiding inside my cloak.

"Do they have names?" Goofy asked after a guffaw escaped him, watching his old friend rub the spot on his bill where he was hit.

"Yeah. The boy's called Taiyou and the girl's called Tsuki." Seeing as the two weren't planning on coming out of hiding, Sora went to where Pooh's storybook lay on the ground and picked it up. He had a look of worry on his face as he studied the three scratches on the cover.

"Think it's okay?"

"Gawrsh, maybe you better go back and make sure Pooh's all right." Goofy suggested.

"But what about Merlin?" Donald asked, worrying what would happen if the wizard found out what happened to the book.

"Well, I guess we could explain..."

"Great!"

Donald took the book from Sora and opened it for him, a bright glow emitted from the pages and in a flash Sora was gone. It was at this moment that Taiyou and Tsuki decided to peek out from under my cloak, probably because they saw the flash. They looked around and found that Sora had disappeared. They took slow, silent steps towards Donald to see if the book had any thing to do with it but soon retreated when the duck turned around.

"Couldn't be bothered to wait for an old wizard, eh?"

"Sorry about that..."

"How are things in there?" Merlin asked expectantly. Sora had a expression of disappointment,

"Well... Pooh seems to have forgotten all about me. And not just me- all his other friends, too."

"I was afraid of that..."Merlin trailed off. "I suspect it has something to do with those pages the Heartless stole. You'll have to collect the torn pages and repair the book to put things right. I'd been meaning to tell Leon I'd found it, but maybe we should keep it between us for now."

"We will!"

"Good, good... Now, the book isn't all that cherished. This is for you, Sora." The old wizard placed into Sora's open hand a round trinket with a symbol of a baseball bat on the front. If I remember correctly, this is the charm that summons Chicken Little.

"What is it?" He asked, staring curiously at it.

"Simply concentrate on it with all your heart, and you need only say the word to summon an ally who will help in times of need." Merlin said, giving the instructions on how to call allies.

"Like Simba and Mushu did, the last time we were here?" The teen asked curiously.

"Precisely. Now go forth with your friends by your side!"

"Thanks, Merlin. We're worried about Pooh, so we'll be back once we've found those torn pages.

"M.. Merlin?" I asked shyly.

"Yes, my dear girl?"

"W-Would it be too much trouble if you gave these two to Leon and the others to look after? We can't take 'em with us because-"

"Say no more. I'll make sure the little fellow and lady are in good hands."

"And tell them to ask around if anyone knows where these two's parents are, since they probably got separated in a Heartless attack." At the mention of a Heartless attack, Merlin had a brief expression of worry. But he nodded in agreement anyway.

"Right-o lass."

"Alright, cheers Merlin." I thanked gratefully, I turned my gaze to the two children. "You better be good for these lot, you 'ear me?" I told them sternly. They both nodded in understanding before I turned my back on the three to walk with my friends to the ship so we could move on to the next world.

As we walked back, the boys walked together, conversing with each other while I kept up a few paces behind. Brooding the whole way to the ship.

_"When I wished to come here I was not expecting to run into any little kids. One tiny tyrant is enough, I don't need another. __**(Reason) But think of what would've happened if we didn't save them.**__" _I imagined a scenario of what would happen if I ignored their cries. Those Soldiers closing in on them, the two helplessly screaming for anyone to save them but no one could hear. Then two Soldiers lunge, plunging their clawed hands into their chests and pulling out their glowing hearts. Taiyou and Tsuki's lifeless bodies surrounded in darkness, morphing, becoming part of the horde. I lowered my head at the would've been certain result of it. _"__**(Guilt) They would have become mindless drones and when they attacked us later we wouldn't know. Sending them into oblivion and out of existence.. it would be our fault for not helping them. **__But at least they'll be somewhere safe now. __**(Anger) What if they start getting clingy to us? Just think of how annoying would it be if we had to babysit those little brats, if you ask me they're gonna end up being more trouble than they're actually worth.**__"_ Before any other part of me could rebuttal, my thoughts were interrupted.

"Hey, Aimée?" Sora said, placing a hand on my shoulder. I flinched away from his hand and turned with a small frown.

"What?" I asked irritatedly. Sora scratched he back of his neck before speaking.

"I didn't get to say this before so, thanks for making sure I didn't get sick." My aggravated state calmed,

"You're welcome, but it was nothing. Honestly, I was just gonna leave you like that but then I thought, 'No'." Sora raised a brow then gave a small chuckle, "Also you seemed to be having a nice dream when I was in your room." That caught him off-guard.

"Huh? Whaddya mean?"

"Let's just say you talk in your sleep."

"I do? I-I didn't say anything embarrassing, did I?" He asked nervously, almost like a scared child. I just smirked widely and chuckled then made my way up the metal platform to the Gummi. Sora was right behind me, flailing his insistently while throwing questions that became increasingly desperate,

"What did I say? It can't be that much of a secret right? I bet you're bluffing. Please tell me you're bluffing. I'll give you 500 munny if you tell me. What did I say? C'MON AIMÉE TELL ME, WHAT DID I SAY?!"

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_Fun Fact: Aimée is able to go to sleep at ridiculous times and still get up early enough for school._

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**And so ends another chapter! Gods, finishing this was like having a very tricky shit -_-**

**Axel: Nice choice of words, Exe. *burns off Gandalf beard***

**What? I'd like to see you come up with a better likeness. That was a nice flam-beard by the way. (Cheesy pun, I know. My best friend's puns are rubbing off on me XP)**

**Roxas: Don't you two start an argument, as long as the chapter's done that's all that matters. So, Taiyou and Tsuki? New characters must mean you have something in store for us, wanna share?**

**I don't think so. If you want to know these two's significance to the story, you're gonna have to wait like the rest of my readers. Thank you HeavyJ15 for your faves and story alert, your review gave me enough motivation and a bit of a chuckle to get this done. ;)**

**Roxas: As you can see, reviews are an important part of a writer's diet. So please keep reviewing all of your authors to bring new chapters or you'll be starving them of motivation and bring multiple hiati. Thanks for listening. :)**


	17. Shedding Some Light

Chapter 17: Shedding Some Light

**Hello everyone! Sorry it's taken a bit longer for me to upload a new chapter but something terrible happened. Every single file for my fanfics and novels were wiped from my laptop and I had to rewrite a lot of them (and I still am). All that hard work.. gone. TT_TT But I'm getting them back on my laptop as quickly as I can.**

**A little warning before you read, this chapter is gonna be pretty short so don't expect much to happen. Besides, something is better than nothing, right?**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts or its characters, I only own my OCs.**

_**" "**_** - Dream talk**

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_(Dream Sequence)_

_I'm back in the darkness again, the same pitch black colour surrounding me on all sides. I took a small step forward, a quiet echo sounding out as my foot connected with the ground._

"If I'm back here again, then that means I must have fallen asleep. I knew I was going to be knackered from getting up that early! Oh well, suppose it can't be helped, I better get a move on and find Roxas and Naminé." _I thought. So I started walking further forward into the dark. Nothing but my footsteps could be heard as I went on and wondered just how far I have to go until I reached that door again._

_As my legs carried me onwards, I got that familiar feeling of being followed. If that wasn't good enough then the louder footsteps that started a short while a ago should be proof. My steps stopped as did the louder ones. That conflict on whether to turn around or run came about, and turning around won._

_Those same glowing yellow eyes from before were staring back at me. My heart thumped against my chest when I locked on to those orbs, I stood my ground though with my usual calm expression. We just stood there staring at each other. Part of me sarcastically remarked if this was a staring contest._

_This didn't keep up though as I finally blinked and the obscured Heartless moved towards me. One large step and there was a patch of pale blue light under its foot. I stared in surprise and awe at the soft light illuminating burning red skin and ebony claws, its other foot joined in the light as a second patch appeared. Now that I stared at it, the light was actually brighter than I realised, it revealed the underside of the Heartless's body up to the chest._

_The colours of the creature looked very familiar, it was when I saw a metallic spike from a neck collar and two tail spikes that I then recognised it. It was the boss we fought in Hollow Bastion, the Draco._

"Why is it here? We defeated it but the heart didn't disappear, it came to me instead." _My hand reached for the red heart that hung around my neck, all I felt was my chest. I looked down, the necklace was gone. _"What?" _I tried to comprehend how it could possibly disappear, where it could've gone, yet I couldn't think of an answer. While I was occupied with figuring out the location of my necklace I didn't notice the Draco getting closer. It was only when the pale light entered my peripheral vision that I looked up and saw the giant wyvern's half hidden face right in front of me._

_I jumped with gasp, frightened by the sudden closeness. The Heartless moved its snout under me while I was in mid-jump so I ended up landing on top of its nose, when it raised its head my balance was lost because of the momentum. Once I had steadied myself, the walking started._

_With me riding atop of its head, the walk was silent throughout. The only things that happened were the noisy footsteps echoing again and a path of light being built more with each step the draconian denizen of darkness took. I was so busy watching the extending, shining path over the Heartless's shadowed spiked that I didn't realise that we stopped until a small shake snapped me out of my trance._

_I crawled to the end of its snout where it lowered itself to the ground, giving me less of a distance to climb off. Timidly, cautiously, I climbed off the end of the giant wyvern's nose where I found that we arrived at the white door again. I turned to look up at the dark being, it stared at me for a few seconds before turning with a snort and walking off down the path we just came._

_I watched Draco walk off back down the path, leaving me by myself in front of the door. I wondered,_

"Why would that Heartless be here? Actually, why has it helped me find the door to Roxas and Naminé twice now? Shouldn't have attacked me?" _So many questions, so little time._

_Pushing those questions to the back of my mind for later, I grabbed the handle and opened the door. And as usual, Roxas and Naminé were sitting next to each other at the white table._

_**"Eyup, you two."**__ I greeted. They greeted me back and watched me as I took my usual seat opposite them, I covered my mouth as I yawned tiredly. Wait, is it possible to be tired in a dream? I guess it is since I just did that._

_**"How have you been?"**__ Naminé asked politely._

_**"Fine thanks. You?" **__I answered._

_**"We've been pretty good. Anything interesting happen since we last spoke?" **__Roxas inquired._

_**"Not much, unless you count saving two children from having their hearts taken."**__ Their blue orbs widened a little with shock._

_**"You and Sora saved a couple of kids from the Heartless? That's great!" **__Roxas said with a congratulatory smile._

_**"Not all of us, just me. I was wandering around at the time and I followed a group of Soldiers, I found them cornering Taiyou and Tsuki so I attacked and beat them. Then before we left I asked Merlin to leave them with Leon and the others to find their parents."**_

_**"You don't seem too happy or pleased about it."**_

_"__**Hn." **__I grunted. Not feel like talking much, not like I ever talk a lot anyway._

_**"Do you regret saving them?"**__ That got my attention._

_**"What? No! I don't regret saving them. Actually, saving Taiyou and Tsuki was the first really good deed I've ever done so I guess I am glad about the whole thing." **__A feeling of pride and joy swelled in my heart, now fully realising that I had saved a life. Two lives, no less!_

_**"If you didn't have your shapeshifting powers, would you have still saved them?" **__Naminé asked, looking up from her sketchbook. My eyes snapped to her in surprise, even more surprising was the serious look on her face. I took a few moments to come up with an answer. Would I have saved them if I couldn't shapeshift? Yeah, they would never have been able to defend themselves at all but if they were screaming then people other than just me should've heard them. And the Heartless are strong, even if I did try and help them I would've had my heart taken as well. Now a feeling of guilt surged through me._

_**"...No." **__I answered truthfully with hesitance. __**"But can you blame me though? I'm not used to fighting, I've never fought in my life but now that I'm in these worlds I have no choice but to fight not only if I want to survive but to find a way home too."**_

_**"No, we don't blame you. We understand why you would've ran away instead of fighting, I'd be scared too if I didn't have any fighting skills." **__The male Nobody replied. __**"But that wouldn't stop me from trying, as long as you tried to do something it would've been better than nothing at all."**_

_**"Hn."**__ He was right, even if I'm scared, terrified even, of facing a threat I should still at least try and do something. Anything. Even at the risk of being seriously hurt, or worse._

_**"Speaking of home, what world are you from?" **__Roxas questioned curiously, Naminé gazed at me with curiosity also. Shouldn't he know already, he is Sora's Nobody so what I told Sora back at Beast's Castle Roxas should know too, right?_

_**"I'm from a world called Earth, and it's a very big world."**__ I answered simply. The blonde haired boy pressed on._

_**"What's it like there?"**_

_**"It's just like any other world yet entirely different."**__ An answer I hoped would puzzle him. And it did._

_**"The same but different? How so? What's makes your home world so different from the others, is there something special about it?"**__ Ooh, how was I going to answer this one?_

_**"I-It's hard to explain. I'd take me a while to fully explain everything about my world, so I think that's something to save for another day."**__ I hoped my answer would satisfy him for now. He seemed disappointed but left it at that. None of us spoke for a while after that, I just spent the next several minutes in silence staring at the table._

_Slowly, a nervous thought entered my head._

_**"H-Hey, can I ask you two a question?" **__I asked nervously. They both looked up from whatever they were doing and nodded as a 'yes'. __**"Hypothetically, i-if a friend was keeping a secret from you for quite a long time, a secret so big that it could make everyone doubt you about everything - w-would you forgive them or would you turn them away and want nothing to do with them ever again?"**__ They stared at me with dumbfounded looks for a moment._

_**"Wow, kind of a tough question." **__Roxas answered as he scratched the back of his head. __**"Personally, I think I'd be upset if a friend kept a secret that could affect me and everyone around us. And I would be angry and probably want nothing else to do with them,"**__ A small pang of sadness arose in my chest but my blank face remained._ _**"But I wouldn't because even if a secret did hurt me they'd still be my friend, I would look back on all the times they helped me and the good times we had together. It wouldn't be enough to completely make up for what they did but I would still believe that they are still good on the inside. So my answer is, I would forgive them."**__ The sadness went away once he gave the rest of his answer._

_Naminé then gave her answer._

_**"Same goes for me, I would forgive them as well. Sometimes friends keep secrets to themselves, whether it's for selfish reasons or to protect one another. It can hurt when truths are revealed but reasons behind keeping them hidden can help endure or overcome the pain. The outcome of telling a secret is scary, but as long as you faith and trust in each other, then things should be fine."**_

_I soaked in their answers and let out a content breath. At least they would forgive me if I ever told them a possible harmful secret. But now it sent me into more conflict, should I tell my friends the secret about my world and how I know almost everything that's happened and what's going to happen, or should I wait until a better time?_

_Becoming in conflict with myself was getting me agitated and I wanted to leave so I could think more. I rose from my seat,_

_**"I'm gonna go now, you two. I need to wake up before me and the others arrive in the next world, and to be honest, thinking over your answers was making my head hurt."**_

_**"Alright, we'll see you later."**_

_**"Be careful in this next world."**__ Naminé cautioned. I rolled my eyes, she almost sounds like my mum, worrying about going to a new place by myself. Well not entirely by myself._

_**"I will. See ya." **__As I was about to pull the handle down, Roxas's voice suddenly spoke up._

_**"Wait! I forgot to ask, is Axel alright?"**__ His voice laced with a bit of worry. Heh, still worried for his best friend._

_**"Yeah, he's fine. He seems to be doing a bit better now."**__ I said reassuringly._

_**"That's good to hear. What about Demyx? Have you seen him again?"**__ Ah, he's still worrying about him too._

_**"Yeah, met with him in Beast's Castle. And don't worry, every time Axel comes to visit Demyx is right behind him he won't do anything to me anyway. I think he's starting to get along with me as well, he's been happy since I've taught him some new songs."**_

_Roxas shook his head as if to say 'typical'._

_**"So long as he has something new to do with music he'll always be happy."**_

_**"Sounds like him, anyway I really need to be going now. Once again, see ya!"**__ And with that, I shut the door behind me._

* * *

_**"Roxas?"**_

_**"Yeah?"**_

_**"When she asked us that question about secrets.. do you think that she was hinting at something?"**_

_**"You really want my opinion? I think she's keeping a secret from everyone; me, you, Sora, everybody she meets."**_

_**"Should we be worried about it?"**_

_**"...I don't know. I don't know."**_

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**Okay everyone, that's another chapter done and out of the way. Please read this because this is important. I went over my reviews and noticed that a few of them have said/suggested/asked that Sora and Aimée should be a couple, so what I want to ask you, my readers, is this: should I pair up my OC with Sora or not?**

**Roxas: Pairing up? You're finding her a boyfriend?**

**Me: Not boyfriend per say, more of a love interest.**

**Roxas: Isn't that more or less the same thing?**

**Me: I.. don't think so. Love interest is more like someone who has feelings for another but they don't admit it to them.**

**Roxas: So it's a possibility but it isn't certain?**

**Me: Yeah!**

**Roxas: Well good luck with that. We'll just have to see how many votes we get then decide on it.**

**Me: Yes, we will... NOW REVIEW!**


	18. Olympus Coliseum

Chapter 18: Olympus Coliseum

**Gods, this took longer than I thought. Didn't think that the specialism part of my art course would keep me so preoccupied. -_- My apologies for being slow in updating, planning out new ideas for stories and had to do a university application, and of course Christmas shopping.**

**I know this chapter may seem rushed but I just really wanted to get this one out of the way.**

**I don't own Kingdom Hearts or its characters, I only own my OCs.**

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All I could hear in the darkness was a muffled voice, it grew louder and clearer with each passing second. One voice became three distinct voices as my eyes opened to a mild bright light and three blurs. I blinked hard twice to help my eyes focus, the blurs evaporated to make way for the faces of the rest of my group. I shift in my seat sluggishly.

"A... Are we there yet?" I asked in a tired daze. Goofy nodded and answered,

"Yup, we just arrived." They backed up as I unfastened my seatbelt and stood from my chair. I arched my back and stretched my arms, a silent yawn escaped me as well giving everyone a flash of my teeth. Once I started moving, the rest did the same and we headed for the ship's door to go out into the new world.

The coliseum we were expecting looked a little.. different to say the least. I took out the bobble that held my ponytail and began raking my nails through my hair, taming most of any bed hair, stray wisps and untangling any knots. My makeshift brushing only took a few seconds despite my locks being so long and once it was done, I tied my hair back into its regular low ponytail.

"Are ya sure this is the coliseum?" Goofy asked in an unsure way. Donald pointed to a nearby staircase that had a bright glow at the top.

"It's that way!" He exclaimed. Sora and Goofy looked to where their third friend was pointing.

"Oh... guess we were a little off."

There was a terrified yell right behind us, it took us a split second to react and spot a woman in a purple dress, Megara, running away from three large, blue dogs. She tripped and landed with a thud, allowing the dogs to catch up and surround her. Once we realised they were Heartless we ran towards the brunette to help. The dogs retreated when they saw us coming. The woman began to pick herself off the ground and Sora, being the helpful soul he is, offered his hand to her.

She placed her fingers against her head,

"Thanks, but. . . I'm fine." She groaned. Seeing that she was still recovering from her fall, Sora further extended his hand to her. Meg glanced at it before standing and folding her arms. "And you're supposed to be?"

_"Rude."_ Is what I thought of her actions and tone but then I remembered that she's independent and doesn't like seeming helpless or weak. So I decided to push that thought away and forgive her.

"I'm Sora, he's Donald, that's Goofy and she's Aimée. We came to see how Hercules is doing." The brunette said. Meg raised a brow and scanned over us.

"You know Wonderboy?" She asked, in surprise or doubt I don't know.

"Yeah, 'cause we're heroes, too!" Donald said proudly puffing his chest out.

"Ya mean junior heroes, Donald." Goofy pointed out, popping Donald's bubble.

"Looks like we have a common friend. Name's Megara. Friends call me Meg."

I barely paid attention to what they were saying as I was far too busy taking in the gloomy, dim sights of these Underworld caverns. I noted that there many stalagmites pointing towards the ceil- actually there didn't seem to be a ceiling in this part of the Underworld, just ongoing pitch black. The water around the land we were standing on was a murky shade of purple with a light dusting of fog being carried on top of it.

_"This place in't so bad. It's dark and it's quiet, this would be a good spot to come to if I want some quiet time."_ I thought with an optimistic mind.

A trio of voices brought my attention back to the conservation.

"You catch any of that? You looked like you were a million miles away." Meg asked.

"Yeah, yeah, I know what we have to do." I said in a bored tone. Now we had to do was go and find Hades, this should be fun.

* * *

The giant doors slowly opened by themselves, allowing us entry into the Cave of the Dead. We didn't more than a few steps before the doors closed behind us and the first few Heartless arrived. It didn't take long to get rid of them seeing as they were very weak. Once they were taken care of, we collected the munny and bubbles that were dropped, giving us some more money and replenishing our magic, and we entered the next part of the cave.

As soon as we entered the tunnel passages, a man dressed in black sprinted past us and rounded the nearest corner. It must've been Demyx.

"The Organization!" We began to chase after Demyx but we were cut short when more Rabid Dogs and a couple of Shadows appeared. Immediately, weapons were drawn and another battle commenced. I decided to turn into a gryphon to get rid of these Heartless. I repeatedly swiped at them with my strong talons, it only took a few strikes to end them but I had to watch where I stepped because they kept lunging, trying to snap at my feet. Some managed to get a few nips in here and there but they ended up the same as the others, fading in clouds of black smoke.

Oh gods, the AGONY! I squawked, I snapped my head 'round to the source of this new pain.

A Rabid Dog latched itself on to my tail and it didn't seem to be letting go anytime soon. My mind had gone completely blank, my body moving frantically on its own. I vaguely noticed anything apart from my shrill shrieks. Solid surfaces made contact with me every so often, I hoped that this would make the mongrel let go but it held firm. I even tried flying but that didn't work since where I was, was too small for my wings to fully stretch. Even if I did fly just the tiniest bit, I only ended up colliding with something hard above me. Everything was a blur.

A swirling storm of emotions was growing inside me. I was upset. I was in pain. And now, I was. Extremely. ANGRY! Low, rumbling growls escaped me, along with shortened huffs. Sucking in as much air as I could, my chest expanded before deflating in a loud, deafening roar. The earth beneath me rumbled as the noise I made echoed for many moments, and as the tremors subsided, so did the pain in my tail.

Burning pain wracked my lungs as I calmed myself down, my forelimbs tensing as I looked around, a series of low chirps escaping me as my eyes darted for anymore signs of danger. There were none. I started calming down once I was able to think straight.

"Are you okay?" Donald asked. I turned my head to the white duck, he was holding my tail by the hairs on the tip and that was when I realised the state it was in. A part of it was zig-zag shaped and it throbbed in pain, I hissed when Donald poked it with a feathered finger.

"I'm fine." I answered. With a simple flick, my tail was free. I sat down for a moment and asked,

"So what happened to the Heartless?" They looked at me with disbelieving expressions,

"You mean, you don't remember?" Sora inquired. I shook my head. "As soon as that Heartless bit your tail you started going nuts. You were running around screeching and knocking over the other Heartless - you even knocked us over!"

"Soz." I apologised quietly.

"Then you tried flying but ended up hitting the ceiling, you looked really angry and you did this huge roar. It made lots of boulders fall from the ceiling and flattened all the Heartless, even the one on your tail." The brunette explained, Donald and Goofy nodded, confirming his explanation.

"Well... At least I got rid of the Heartless." I jested, scratching the side of my head with my lion leg. I pressed my talons gently against my tail and cast a Cure spell. A vibrant green glow surrounded me and almost in an instant, my tail straightened out and the pain receeded to a mere dull sting.

I hopped on to a nearby ledge, that's where I saw a treasure chest a short while ago. Green and gold were sitting idly in front of the cavern wall. I went over to the chest and gave it a hard tap. The lid opened and a glowing blue crystal popped out. I caught it in my beak, from as much as I could see, it was in the shape of a crescent moon.

_"What was this called again? A... Mythril shard, that's it!"_ I had to admit it was a very pretty piece of crystal or whatever it's made of, I'd better give this to one of the boys for safe keeping.

When I neared them, I offered them the shard and one of them approached to take it from me. As Donald grabbed it, a strong urge came over me. I continued to stare into the shiny blue shard, unblinking, dazzled by its prettiness, lustre and soft blue glow, I.. I didn't want to give it up. I found it so it was mine to keep, right? My unblinking gaze had to end when my felt like they were drying up and that broke me from my trance and caused me to let go of the mythril shard. Donald landed flat on his back with a surprised quack.

He rubbed his back and gave me an annoyed stare. I gave a nervous half grin and began walking ahead of the others, though it didn't take long for them to catch up.

We made it out of the passages and walked into some sort of chamber. At the same time, the same cloaked Nobody was running towards us. Everyone drew their weapons yet I just stood idly by, knowing that Demyx wasn't planning on doing any fighting. He ran right by us yelling,

"Run! Run away!" I couldn't help but chuckle quietly at that line. Once he transported out with a Corridor of Darkness, we looked in his direction.

"Okay...?"

For now we took a short break in this other chamber, the boys made some purchases with the holographic Moogle. They bought extra potions, elixirs and a new weapons for both Donald and Goofy. Donald's new staff now had a blue handle with a large white star with a smaller yellow star sitting at the top, and Goofy's shield was shaped like a big yellow star with a purple circle in the centre surrounded by five small, blue triangles. Sora also took this time to change the keychain on his Keyblade - the one that would become the Star Seeker. We also acquired a map of the Underworld so that should help us a bit as well.

When we were all ready to move again, we slowly walked towards the giant crack in the rock.

Seeing as the crack in the wall was large enough, we could easily walk through to the other side. Although, I had to crouch seeing as I was a little too big.

The next location was an eerie green colour, mainly due to the green waters below. Rocky platforms lead up to the where Hades was hiding, only minutely obscured by the thin mist. Goofy and Donald looked around nervously, Donald shivering by the chilling atmosphere it gave off.

"I'm scared too, Donald."

"Hades, come out!"

"Don't think he can hear you from here, mate." I mumbled. Before anyone could take a single step, I lowered myself to the ground a spread out my wings. They stared at me quizzically. "Gerr'on. It'll be quicker if I fly us over."

_"And hopefully, no Heartless will appear by doing so."_ You may think of this as lazy, but I see it as helpful, if I just fly us over to the next entry point then we won't have to fight any Heartless. Therefore we can save some more energy for when we fight Hades, and I'm really not looking forward to that.

They certainly didn't object, in fact they seemed rather excited to fly. Understandable, it's not everyday that you get to ride on a gryphon, y'know.

Once they had settled on my back, I flapped my large, white-and-grey wings until I was a few feet off the ground. It was a little hard to do so since the three of them were heavy. When I was high enough, I propelled myself forward, flying over the platforms and glowing green below until we neared the entrance to Hades' lair.

My landing was a bit rough, stumbling a few times before I caught myself. I could feel the trio slide off my back, at this point I decided to revert back to my normal self. I flexed my fingers and bent my back, many clicks escaping the bones.

"You lot are heavy!" I muttered to myself. They didn't hear me of course, and that they were already halfway up the staircase. I sighed tiredly and ran after them. I don't think I can take much more of this running lark.

* * *

Talking to Hades... Yeah, that went _really_ well. We were all (excluding Auron) knackered, panting breathlessly as we sat on the ground. Our bodies had cuts, some burns, and pretty sure that we'll be getting a lot of bruises later. And what's worse-!

_Rrrrrrooh!_

I'm hungry.

"You're really good. Are you some kind of hero?" Sora questioned, looking up to Auron. Auron glanced down at him with his only eye and replied,

"No. I'm no hero... I'm just an..." He trailed off. Sora tilted his head in confusion, "Auron." The boys were still confused, "My name."

"I'm Sora!"

"Donald."

"Goofy!" Despite being a strong and skilled fighter, Sora couldn't carry the extra weight of his two animal friends and dropped to the ground in a heap. The older man glanced at me,

"And what about you?" I steadily rose from the ground, patting the dirt off my jeans.

"Oh! Uh I.. I-I'm Aimée." He gave an acknowledging nod before turning to the others, who were still sprawled out on the floor.

"It seems we were fated to meet. Maybe you need a guardian." Sora pushed himself up and brushed past the older man.

"Guardian? Thanks, but no thanks."

As soon as we were done with another rest in the Inner Chamber, we traced our way back to the original entrance and beating some Heartless along the way. I was relieved that we made it back but then I remembered the difference about the door.

"What? It's closed!" Donald exclaimed. Sora and Goofy ran over to the door to try and open it but were halted when I called out.

"Wait!" They looked back at me with questioning looks.

"What is it?" Sora asked. I didn't say anything but just pointed to the giant lock and blue keyhole on the door. Sora glanced up and appeared to have got the message and summoned the Star Seeker.

"Will that open it?" Auron asked.

"Yeah. I think so." Sora was in the middle of raising his weapon when we heard an echoing growl approaching.

"Hurry!" A huge dark form fell from an opening further up the wall opposite us. The earth quaked when it landed and I recognised it instantly.

"Cerberus!" I exclaimed. I gawked at the giant, three-headed black dog with awe. Sleek black fur, fearsome red eyes and vicious, gnashing teeth. Exactly how any hellhound should look. Twitching at the corners, my lips pulled themselves into a fascinated grin as a shiver of excitement shot up my spine. My awe-struck state broke when I heard Donald call out for us.

_"Oh yeah! We're meant to be fighting him now!"_

"You ready?" Sora asked me. I shifted into my gryphon form again and glanced at him before returning my attention to the giant guard dog.

"I s'pose so." I crouched closer to the ground, claws scraping against rock in a prepared pounce. Cerberus slammed a paw on the ground and gave a terrifying roar from all three heads before leaping at us.

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**And another chapter done! The boys have upgraded their weapons, so they should be a little bit stronger now. Don't know if this counts as a cliffhanger but I chose to end it like this because I wanted to kick off the next chapter with the full on fight with Cerberus.**

**Until next time, ta ta.**


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